


Transient

by tantedrago



Category: Warehouse 13
Genre: AU, Death, Depression, F/F, Helena is dead, Mentions of Suicide, angst and pain, ghost fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:42:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantedrago/pseuds/tantedrago
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: H.G. Wells wakes up in a house without knowing who she is. Slowly, she realises that people can't see her and don't react to her: Helena is a ghost. The literature professor Myka Bering buys her house. As the American moves in, HG slowly falls in love with her. But there is still this problem with her being dead and unnoticable to other people. But with Miss Bering, something is different.<br/>Thanks to the-social-recluse for the beta of this one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For this one, I need a disclaimer: As much as I don't own any character but Ruth Thompson in this story as much I don't own the music that I post in these notes. Songs inspired me, I listened to them while writing. And you can listen to them to adapt yourself to the chapters. None of them are mine (who would have guessed?), credits to the artist responsible for them. And thanks.  
> _______
> 
> Come here
> 
> Pretty please
> 
> Can you tell me where I am
> 
> You, won't you say something
> 
> I need to get my bearings
> 
> I'm lost
> 
> And the shadows keep on changing
> 
> Poe - Haunted

She had been alone for a very long time. In fact, she had no idea for how long she had been alone in this completely empty house, or why. Didn't she have family who cared for her? Who would send her letters to make sure she was alright? Or maybe a telegram? Or something to tell her that they were alive and well?

Well, on the other side she hadn't sent something like this as well. Neither had she any intentions to do so.

It wasn't like she knew to whom she should send such things. The truth was that she didn't even know who she was and if she had something like family.

All she knew was that she just had bought this house. The reason why she had bought this house was... also nothing she knew. Or why she felt so much pain in her heart. The pain was something that concerned her the most. It was always there and turned her existence into torture, although for some unknown reason it was also soothing at the same time. She got lost very often in this numbing pain. And when her mind became clear again, she didn't know for how long she had been gone.

Sometimes, when the pain wasn't that bad she had the feeling she was about to remember everything. But as if her mind wanted to protect herself, she always fell back into that numbing state of pain and oblivion. It was frustrating, even though she didn't know what was causing it.

This was how she spent her time, in pain, in oblivion, frustrated, and utterly lonely. But none of her emotions caused a desire in her to leave this house. It was like she had to be here by default. Like she belonged to this house and it belonged to her. So she didn't question it. Not even once.

__________________________________________

After a very long time... After a very long time? It could also be a very short time which she hadn't realised. How long had she been here now? She had no idea. Maybe she should do some research on the time she had spe-

But there was something far more important.

There were people in her house, for god's sake! And it might be that she had some problems with her memory, but she was more than sure she hadn't invited anyone into her house.

So she almost flew down the wooden stairs to protect her property, not even the tiniest bit afraid that those people could mean harm to her.

It were two men in blue overalls and yellow helmets. No, make that two utterly rude men in blue overalls and yellow helmets. They didn't greet her. On the contrary, they completely ignored her. How dare they!

In the dim light which the windows allowed to pass through the thick layers of dust on them, the two men walked around the empty house and talked quietly to each other. They examined and observed every wall, every wooden beam and every window in her house. And they completely ignored her while doing it.

She was mad. No, she was utterly furious. Those people came into her house and looked at her property like it was their own. They even drew with pencils on her walls! She recognised the feeling of being this angry and assumed that she had already been this furious at least once in her life. If only she could remember...

At first she tried to show those men how one behaves properly. She politely greeted them and asked them what they were doing here. After a while, she started yelling at them. She was impressed by their complete lack of emotion towards her. If she would have been yelled at by the owner of the house she just had intruded into, she would have never been able to be so completely emotionless.

After some time, she gave up her attempts to communicate with them and stomped frustratedly with her foot on the wooden floor.

One of those men spun around on his heels and stared at the floor.

"Did you hear that?" He asked his partner like she wasn't standing at the spot he was staring at.

This became more and more mysterious to her.

"It's an old house, pal. The floor is made of wood. It makes noises." His partner answered.

So, well. They really didn't recognise that she was standing in front of them. Suddenly, she felt afraid.

Could it be... could it be that she somehow was invisible? She had the feeling that being invisible meant something to her. Maybe she was invisible. Maybe it was a side effect of being invisible that people also couldn't hear her. That was an explanation to why she was so lonely - since people couldn't really communicate with her.

Oh, buggers. This was an utterly unpleasant situation. No memory, invisible, intruders in her house. Was there anything she could do about this? And for god's sake, how did it come to this? She was very certain that one didn't get just invisible by mistake and no one recognised it. Maybe an experiment? Had she performed experiments? That rang a bell inside her. But she didn't know why.

She huffed in frustration and crossed her arms. Arms!

For the first time in what felt like ages she looked down her own body. Yes, she was in fact female. Good, she hadn't really thought about it but it had been an assumption she was glad to see come true.

Then she realised that - while apparently being invisible - she could see her own body. This was good, too. She had no interest in being a bodiless entity floating around the house. She could see and feel her own body. Well, there was no mirror in her house and the windows were still too dusty to show her what her face looked like. But she recognised her silky black hair (she had to admit that she was a little impressed by her own hair being that silky and shiny after all that time without a bath) and that she was dressed properly in black trousers, a white blouse, a black waistcoat and simply black and flat shoes. This was good as well, because she also had no desire in being invisible and unable to communicate with people while being in a dress and a corset. She didn't even dare to think about being trapped in a corset without being able to ask another person to help her out of it.

While she stood with her arms crossed in front of these two men, who now measured her house, she had the feeling of becoming self aware. But not too much. She had understood that she was in fact a person but she had still no idea who this person was and how it did come to this situation.

And why there was this feeling of pain in her heart all the time.

It was exasperating.  
________________________________________

She didn't get hungry. This was something she noticed while looking at one of those workers in her house who had sat down to eat pastries. Those two men had left after a while and she had been glad that she was alone again until more people had come into her house.

A big group of people now came every day. They carried strange machines and tools with them and messed up with her walls and the floor. At first she had been worried that they were about to break down the house completely, but then she had realised that they were fixing it up.

Well, that wasn't something to be mad about. Even though she hadn't asked for it.

She had to admit that this house had been a mess. So it was alright they took care for it, although she asked herself whose idea it was.

And it was very unpleasant that she couldn't tell them to stop at some point. Sometimes she had a need for silence, but those people worked the whole day. At least at night she was alone again and could enjoy the silence.

And now she sat in front of this worker who happily munched a round piece of pastry and she realised that she hadn't eaten in ages. Or slept. She had no need to eat or sleep.

Being invisible didn't at all explain the lack of hunger or fatigue. And there was still this pain inside her chest. Something was wrong. Something was utterly wrong...

_______________________

The windows were renewed and clean (no mirror reflection, of course - being invisible meant no mirror reflection - how could she have been so stupid?), the walls were fixed and painted white, they had changed the arrangement of rooms. They had also set up a completely new, strange looking bathroom and something she assumed to be a kitchen. It looked good. The invisible woman was pleased by the job those men had done Even though she still hadn't asked for it. But if the interruption of her solitude meant getting your house fixed up this well, she could agree on more such interruptions in a distant future.

Those men also brought some strange things into her house. She had watched them putting cables up in her walls and currently, her face hovered over a really odd flat white rectangular-shaped object on the wall with three holes in it. She had absolutely no idea what that was for, but there were several of them around her house.

Interesting. She had to admit that some of the things they had placed here really intrigued her. But she had also noticed that another side effect of being invisible meant being unable to touch objects. And that was something that really worried her.

Was it just that she was invisible? Was there no different explanation? There had to be ano-

The main door opened and she turned around to find out who was now coming in her house.

Of course. That one woman who had showed up occassionally while the workers were here. Who had talked to them and who had looked very pleased around the house. Somehow, the invisible woman disliked her. She called her 'the laugher'. Because the woman had such an unpleasant false laugh.

But now, the laugher was followed by another woman. She was tall, brunette, curly haired. Her green eyes glistened as she walked through the door and took a first look at the hall. The invisible woman had to admit she was beautiful. Something about her utterly intrigued her. And suddenly, that pain inside her chest remarkably weakened.

"And here we are." The laugher said with some sort of self-regarding voice while stepping out of the hall and into a bigger room next to the kitchen.

The new woman closed the main door behind herself and followed her after, smiling genuinely.

"You didn't lie in your email." She said. "It is beautiful."

American. She was American.

"Of course I didn't lie in my email, Miss Bering." The laugher replied with this faux laugh on her lips. Miss Bering. Bering. The invisible woman decided that it was important to memorise this name. "I also didn't lie when I said that HG Wells bought it in 1899."

HG Wells? This name... This name meant something to her. She was sure.

"So he really lived here?" Miss Bering asked and raised both her eyebrows, clearly showing disbelief. She left the big room through the door to the kitchen.

"Uhm, no, I'm sorry." The laugher replied. "He just bought this house and then abandoned it for an unknown reason. The house was empty until he died in 1946 and all those years afterwards because he didn't mention it in his testament and nobody claimed it." After that she followed the American.

After a long time of solitude and confusion, the woman who spent all her time in this house had been sure that her own name was HG Wells. But then she realised both of these intruders referred to this person as a he. Now, she was more confused than ever. But it also had a different cause inside her. She really felt the need to find out who she was. And it numbed the pain.

HG Wells was dead and this could also mean- She shoved this thought away. Maybe she could find out more when she followed the women through the house.

"After a long time of pushing papers, the city could claim the house and demolish it, but instead it was decided the house should get fixed and turned into this beautiful place." The laugher smiled and looked at the ceiling.

"And now I bought it." Miss Bering showed a very pleasant smile. "It's a nice side effect that it belonged to HG Wells. You have to know that I really have a thing for his literature."

"Well, I assumed. Since you're a literature professor." Again a false smile from the laugher.

"Mrs. Smith-" Aha! The grinning creature had a name. "It's more than just a work interest in his literature. It's like..." Miss Bering blushed a little. "Like he's my idol or something. My father read his books to me when I was a kid."

The American looked so happy and satisfied while she talked about this fact that the invisible woman wished she could be this HG Wells for her. The thought soothed the pain in her heart, and so did the way Miss Bering smiled. The name meant so much for the both of them. So she decided to refer to herself as HG Wells. Why not? It wasn't like this dead man could claim this name any longer. And somehow, she suddenly had the need to have a name.

HG Wells was delighted by Miss Bering.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And I'm haunted
> 
> By the lies that I have loved
> 
> And actions I have hated
> 
> I'm haunted
> 
> By the lives that wove the web
> 
> Inside my haunted head
> 
> Poe - Haunted

Miss Bering didn't take long to move into the house. HG wasn't sure if she was happy or not about the circumstance that she now had a good looking roommate with whom she couldn't communicate.

There were certain things she was unhappy about. The colours Miss Bering had chosen for the walls for example. HG liked them in white but Miss Bering seemed to like every room in a different colour. The American carried a lot of things, machines, and devices into her house. HG didn't understand them all but was interested. And Miss Bering also seemed to like shelves. She had a entire room full of them. Maybe she was waiting for something to place in those shelves, HG wasn't sure. At least she was glad that the house wasn't empty anymore. Because, well, if someone is living in a house it should maybe be filled with things they like. If she could only bring a few things into it, too.

She was currently standing in front of a wall in a room that now was Miss Bering's living room and pondered over the question if she could agree on the bright purple it was coloured in. Well, it wasn't like she could change it, was it? She had to accept that the American would make decisions about the invisible woman's house she couldn't influence. Yet.

HG had plans on finding a way to make her needs understandable for the other woman. She just didn't know how.

Yet.

But she would find out. This was just another big puzzle for her. As big as the puzzle of finding out who she was and why she was in this state of being.

It was an early evening although it was already dark outside, and the electric (yes, she had finally understood what those white objects with the holes in the walls were for) lights were turned on.

Miss Bering walked through the living room with a device pressed against her ear. She opened several brown boxes and pulled objects out of it to place them on tables and shelves in the living room. The curly haired woman seemed to like things put neatly and in order. That was something HG didn't need as desperately as her, but she could agree on it. At least the other woman wasn't a chaotic person.

Technically, HG was still confident that this was her house, because she knew that she had bought it. It was the only memory she had. This HG Wells writer man couldn't have claimed it, because it belonged to her. And Miss Bering was her guest. Who was allowed to change certain things in her house - like the colour of the walls - without asking.

"Myka Bering, good evening." The American suddenly said and HG spun on her heels to face her, completely surprised. In those two days Miss Bering had been here now, she hadn't shown any behaviour of talking to herself.

But in this moment she was talking and it seemed like she was addressing somebody. The other woman pondered for a second over this while she watched the curly haired woman biting her lip in anticipation. Could it be that the American had realised that she shared her house with an invisible person? HG mentally noted the other woman's first name and stepped closer, firmly smoothing her clothes.

"Miss Bering." She said and nodded her head eagerly. "It's a pleasure to meet yo-"

"Hello Professor Sutton." Myka didn't look at her but turned around and again walked through the room. HG confusedly blinked for a few seconds and then sighed, disappointed.

That object Miss Bering held pressed against her ear seemed to be some sort of communication device. She wasn't talking to HG at all, who was still invisible and unable to interact with other people. The invisible woman was alone in her own home. Alone while being in company with another beautiful person. And she hated it.

Frustrated, the raven haired woman crossed her arms and leaned against the couch. She watched Miss Bering talking to this Professor Sutton.

Suddenly, the invisible woman realised that she actually touched the object with her hip. In surprise, HG's frustration vanished while she looked down to the piece of furniture. For the part of a second, the electric lights slightly flickered.

Then she fell over through the couch to the ground. With a groan, the woman rolled over and stood up again. She was in some intangible condition and couldn't touch things. But she was sure, her body had just brushed the pillow on the couch. Standing up, she looked at the purple object and recognised it had changed its position. The invisible woman blinked in confusion. What had happened? Was she changing? Slowly becoming physical again? A whole person like the others? She stared at the pillow like it was one of her biggest achievements.

"Yes, I'm finally in London." Miss Bering spoke into her communication device. Her voice trembled almost unrecognisably. She was talking very slowly, like she wasn't fully concentrating on the conversation she currently had.

HG Wells looked up and realised that the American's eyes were pinned to the pillow on the couch as well. The curly haired woman narrowed her eyes and both her eyebrows slowly raised. Interested, the other woman watched her and pondered over her behaviour.

So she had seen it, too.  
______________________

Myka Bering was happy about the house she bought. Back in America, she had pondered for a very long time over the job offer and moving to the UK. She had friends over there, - Pete, Claudia, Steve. And family: her mother, father, and sister. Leaving them all behind was a very hard decision. Myka maybe wasn't the most social butterfly in existence, but she knew that she would miss her people. And then this job offer in London. She had worked very hard as a researcher in the literature department of her university. And in London, they were offering her the opportunity to not only teach other people her own view on stories, history and authors, no they also offered her an own research department. Being in charge over people who worked for her about a thing she loved was more than compelling. Her hesitation was caused by the people she loved.

But then she had seen this house on the internet. She had fallen in love with it. Her friends and family had told her that they thought she should move. And that they expect she would invite them into this wonderful house. So she had made a decision.

The house was old, but the renovation had worked wonders on it. It had its own charm, looking like a smaller and old Victorian mansion on the outside and quite modern on the inside.

Part of this 'old and new' charm was that the house made noises every now and then. The beautiful wooden beams which carried the truss cracked, and the wind sometimes blew through the roof and caused this frightening howling noise.

Sometimes it sounded like somebody was stomping over the old wooden floor.

Or doors were screeching, at times, they closed on their own. Myka didn't believe in ghosts, of course she didn't. She knew that wood was always in slight movement. The wind was working on its own. And this one time she had sat behind her desk, her office chair had slightly rolled back, so she had realised that the house was a little askew. No wonder doors closed and things fell down from tables or shelves.

But the American had to admit that sometimes, when she was home alone after a long day of work in University, she felt like somebody was watching her. Well, due to the fact that she was completely alone in this house, it was just a feeling. Maybe because she was alone and hadn't really found friends at work yet. But still, she had this feeling very often.

For example, in this current moment. She had curled up on the couch to read H.G. Wells' The Time Machine for maybe the hundredth time in her life. It felt appropriate, because she was living in his house now even though the writer had never really lived here. A few minutes ago, she had opened one of the living room's windows to let in some fresh air. Maybe she should close them again, because they had announced a storm for this night.

There were already goosebumps on her neck from the draught in the room.

If Myka didn't know better she would have been sure somebody was standing right behind her, breathing into her neck.

Of course nobody was behind her. The thought alone was just absurd. So she shoved it away and concentrated on the text. For a reason that was unknown to her, it was really hard to do so. She read this one line for at least three or four times without understanding it. So she groaned, rolled her eyes in frustration and then decided it was best to read it out loud. Maybe hearing it would allow the line to finally find its way into her brain.

After she had done it, she felt nervous and couldn't explain why. She couldn't concentrate any better on the next line, so she read it out loud as well.

Slowly, she turned a page of her book and went on reading out loud, rubbing her neck slightly. It was ridiculous. Now she was already reading her own books loudly to herself. Maybe she should really start making friends and being social.

Again there was this stomping noise on the floor, but this time differently than before. It sounded like somebody was walking hastily through the room. Myka swallowed and admitted to herself she was slightly scared. Then she laughed quietly, but still felt a tiny bit nervous.

It's an old house, she told herself. It makes noises.

But then her lights flickered and the window burst open with a loud bang. The American yelped in shock.

The wind made her coffee table rattle and the pile of paper sheets - which she had placed dangerously close to its edge - fell down to the ground.

Thunderstruck, the American sat on her couch and stared at those sheets. The window curtains next to her waved into the room and looked almost like a creature reaching out for her. Myka's breath quickened, her heart thundered in her chest.

The wind, she concluded. It had just been the wind. The weather lady had talked about an oncoming storm. It had just blown her sheets from the table and maybe interfered with the transmission towers outside. Of course. That was only logical. The weather here could be terrifying. For sure.

Taking deep and steady breaths, she put her book down and then stood up from the couch to close the window and pick up the papers.  
________________________

HG Wells sat on the bed in Myka Bering's guest room. She had chosen this place to have some time for her own in case the other woman was in the house and she needed to be alone. The American hadn't yet had visitors who stayed overnight, so HG guessed it was alright for her.

Currently, she really needed some time alone. When Miss Bering was reading this book, HG had looked over her shoulder.

For a reason she didn't understand the other woman suddenly started reading the words out loud. And then, while listening to Myka Bering's stunning voice HG had recognised her own words. She had remembered them and writing them. Remembered, who she was.

And she realised that she had been better with not knowing.

She was Helena George Wells, she was this HG Wells who has written those books. She had been a writer, an inventor. She was born in 1866 and published this particular book in 1895 with the help of her brother Charles Wells.

Helena curled up and wrapped her arms around her legs as tears formed in her eyes. This had been four years after Christina, her daughter, was born and another four years before the girl had died.

The writer clenched her jaw in desperation to not start crying. But it didn't work. She had lost Christina. Her beloved daughter was dead. She remembered everything while tears ran down her cheeks.

Recalling this was like losing her for a second time, living through everything again. The Victorian had never accepted her daughter's death. For months, she had searched for a way to bring her back. Suddenly that pain inside the author's chest made sense. It made so much sense. She mourned her daughter. She missed her so much. How could she have forgotten Christina? How could she have forgotten those endless hours she had been sitting in her lab, doing research on several possibilities to undo the incident that allowed those men to kill her daughter? How could she have forgotten all those tears she had cried?

And then...

She didn't know. The last thing Helena remembered was buying this house. What had happened to her? Why was she trapped here?

There was a realisation that broke down over Helena like hail of memories.

Christina was dead and so was the writer.

There was no different explanation for this. HG Wells was a ghost haunting this house.

She was dead.

This was the first time HG Wells saw the shadow. The darkness had made it into her room, right behind her, like it was watching her. Waiting.

It was on the opposite side of the guest room, big, rectangular shaped, stuck to the wall. Helena ignored it.

She turned away from it and sank into her own memories. The pain in her chest just increased and got unbearable. The writer got lost in all those thoughts that occupied her mind.

If one was dead shouldn't they be with their loved ones?

Helena had never been a religious person, but the thought of meeting Christina in the afterlife had always appeased her. And now...

This eternity of solitude, the pain she lived in, this house she was bound to, HG was so desperate and desolate. She closed her eyes and drowned. Drowned in what was memory and denial, not knowing for how long she would be gone this time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She can't see the landscape anymore
> 
> It's all painted in her grief
> 
> all of her history, etched out at her feet
> 
> Now all of the landscape, it's just an empty place
> 
> acres of longing, mountains of tenderness
> 
> Florence + the Machine - Landscape

Waking up from a world built of one's own memories, grief and oblivion was hard and exhausting. Helena felt tired but in a way sleep couldn't cure. She had no desire of sleep.

When she once again became aware of her state of being, she felt more alone than ever. The last time she hadn't known who she was and what the point of her existence had been and she had already felt lost. With the realisation that her life was in fact over she felt like her existence was actually pointless. Still she couldn't end it. She was doomed to exist due to the fact that she was already dead and bound to this house. And Christina wasn't here, neither was anybody else who remembered her.

If no one noticed her, was she really existing? How does one define existence if not by the acknowledgment of others? By one's own awareness?

Miss Bering did exist, Helena could hear her walking through the house behind the guest room's door. And she seemed to remember a writer called HG Wells, who Helena once had been... even though the beautiful professor's memories were just produced by the help of books, which had been written long before she was born.

Would there ever be a way that other woman would notice the Victorian's presence?

While not getting hungry or tired, HG had a need inside herself that felt like a way to prove her own state of being. She had to draw the other woman's attention to herself. Maybe it was a resolution for her misery. At first, Helena had become self-aware, realised she was a person. Then she had remembered who she was, even though it had been painful. With this understanding, she had become aware of the fact that there was something missing about her.

Maybe it was the next step on her way to become a whole person again to make others notice her. Well, being dead and bodyless meant that she would never be able to become a human being defined by skin to touch and air to breathe. But HG felt like she was a person with something missing, taken away by her own grief.

And she chose Myka Bering to help her find it.

The house had once again become silent and dark. So Helena assumed it was late and the professor had gone to sleep. The writer stood up from the bed in the guest room to walk into the hall. She stopped in front of the guest room's closed door and frowned in disapproval. She could easily walk through doors and walls, but it didn't feel appropriate. She highly respected other people's privacy and walking through closed doors gave her a feeling of violating it.

But she had to leave this room. Better now than ever.

So the Victorian took a deep breath (being aware of its irony) and started walking. When she was about to hit the bright wood with her forehead, she quickly closed her eyes. The cold feeling that shot through her body while she passed through the door made her shudder.

In the hall, Helena realised that the door to Miss Bering's bed room was wide open. She bit her lip while she pondered over the question if she could see that as an invitation. The professor still didn't know about the invisible woman's existence and it would be rude to -

Oh for the love of god, HG was dead and she needed to see the other woman.

Carefully putting one foot in front of the other, the writer sneaked into Miss Bering's bed room. Myka was lying on the bed, covered in a sheet. Her one hand was buried under the pillow her head was resting on, her other one hidden somewhere under that sheet.

Helena crouched in front of Miss Bering's face and surveyed it: Those lightly closed eyes, the eyebrows in a slight knit like the professor felt indignant by her own dream. Her curls fell onto her forehead and HG reached out a hand in urge to softly tuck them away. But she couldn't. She couldn't caress the other woman's perfect skin or feel her breath tickling on her own.

Myka Bering existed, was noticed by others, had skin to touch and air to breathe. And even though Helena understood and admired her, she would never be able to appreciate her fully. All the Victorian could do was watch the other woman. And if the only way of giving her own existence a reason was in watching over Myka Bering, HG could easily accept it. And maybe some day there would be a way to turn this commitment mutual.

Helena walked around the bed and sat down on the other half of the matress. She stretched out her legs and rested her head against the headboard. Her gaze again fell on Miss Bering's face, who slightly stirred and then turned towards the author. She didn't wake up but slept a silent and calm sleep. HG smiled while feeling the pain in her heart slightly decrease. Maybe this feeling would turn mutual as well. Some day.

_____________________________

Miss Bering walked somewhat pre-occupied through the house, searching for her keys. Again, she had clamped one of those communication devices between her ear and her shoulder. She talked to someone called 'Claudia' or 'Claud'. Helena didn't really listen. She sat on the stairs and stared into empty space, while the other woman busily put the house upside down.

The Victorian didn't know how much time had passed since she had realised who she was. She had spent her time in half-awake state of pain and memories and didn't know for how long she had been gone. And it hadn't helped. All Helena felt was more pain. But concentrating on Miss Bering slightly soothed it. Even though the writer had problems adjusting herself to the other woman's odd behaviours.

"Three weeks, Claudia?" Miss Bering asked surprised. "No, that's okay. I will prepare the guest room for you. I still have some boxes in there but I will empty them out until you're here." The curly haired woman stood at the bottom end of the stairs, turning her head in different directions and then ran her hand through her hair. "Where are my keys?"

"On the coffee table." Helena monotonously answered her question. Of course the other woman didn't hear her. And HG didn't even care. They had had this one sided conversation already.

"No, Claudia, you don't have to bring your ouija board. That's ridiculous. My house isn't haunted and that incident two weeks ago was just the storm." The literature professor turned around and walked straight into the kitchen.

"They aren't on the kitchen's counter either." HG heard Myka's disappointed voice.

"That's because they are in the living room on the coffee table." The Victorian sighed, feeling slightly annoyed.

"Yes, Claud. I'm searching for my keys... No!" Suddenly, the American sounded somewhat indignant. "No ghost has taken them away and hidden them."

"This might be the first thing you're telling this Claudia person about me that is not completely wrong, Miss Bering. I didn't take your keys. You just have forgotten they are on the coffee table" HG sighed, frowning. "In the living room where you put them yesterday evening."

The writer rolled her eyes and stood up. She quietly walked down the stairs and followed the other woman into the kitchen.

"Claudia! Claud... Listen to me, please!" Miss Bering scratched her forehead, looking annoyed. "There is no ghost in my house. I'm cursing myself for having told you this. There were noises and some light flickering and now it's gone, okay? You won't play ghostbusters over here."

She sighed, and her eyes widened. "Stop humming the 'Ghostbusters' theme! ... Can we please change the topic? ...Thank you! ...I'm late for university and I still can't find my keys." The curly haired woman turned her head. "If you were me... where would you put your keys?"

"As I said, they are on the coffee table in the living room." Helena grumbled from the top of the kitchen's counter. She had sat down there to watch Miss Bering. "You always place them on the coffee table when you come home. I honestly can't understand how you cannot remember this."

"Yes, Claud, I have an eidetic memory and still I forget where I put my keys. I'm a shame to everyone who ever had an eidetic memory." Myka grunted into her device.

HG rolled her eyes. Eidetic memory. But cannot remember where she put her keys. Wonderful.

Miss Bering had started to annoy HG Wells at some point. She had very odd habits and was a person who lived with many rituals in her life. After three days of watching her since she had left her state of grief, HG became a little bored by Myka.

Firstly, the professor was barely home. How can one buy such a beautiful house and then not pay attention to it? Helena knew that the other woman was working a lot. She didn't like it. That woman was now in London. A beautiful town that had to be appreciated. And she lived in a beautiful house that had to be appreciated, too. Helena felt like Miss Bering had to do all the things for her she herself wasn't able to do anymore because she was dead.

The Victorian had tried to leave the house but she wasn't able to do so. She was literally trapped in the building and its small garden. She could walk into the garden but not on the street. Frustration was a feeling she now had very often, added to her pain and grief.

When Miss Bering came home for work, she usually went on working in her office room upstairs. And when she was done working there, she cleaned the house, took a shower and then went to bed. Sometimes she read. At least she cleaned the house. But it was still boring.

When Miss Bering walked into the hall and looked at the dresser there for the third time, HG jumped down from the kitchen's counter and entered the living room.

"There!" She said out loudly. "On the coffee table in the living room. Just like yesterday and the day before."

The Victorian positioned herself next to the coffee table and watched Miss Bering walk through the house and talk to this Claudia person with the help of her communication device.

After a few minutes, the writer rolled her eyes and crouched next to the coffee table. She concentrated very hard, because she was about to do something she hadn't mastered yet. Carefully, she reached out her hand and tried to wipe the keys from the coffee table. Her hand easily slipped through the object. The inventor groaned in frustration.

She looked up to Myka in the hall. Then she tried again. This time, she brushed the keys with her palm. They rattled slightly and moved a few centimeters, coming dangerously close to the table's edge.

Good. Again.

Helena closed her eyes for a second. She needed all her concentration for this. With a perfectly aimed and final shove, she wiped the keys off the table. They fell down to the ground with a loud rattle. HG raised her arms triumphantly.

"Did you hear that?" She heard Myka's voice ask from the hall. Miss Bering seemed to have heard her keys falling down. She quickly entered the living room and looked at the object on the floor.

"There they are!" She cheered loudly. Helena showed her a proud smile but then again realised the other woman couldn't see her.

"...yes, I found my keys. Apparently they were on the coffee table in the living room. They just fell down." The curly haired woman talked into her device and then rolled her eyes. "No, it was not a ghost, Claudia. Don't start with that again. ...I will hang up the phone! Seriously, Claud, I will stop talking to you." Myka bent over and reached for her keys. She wore a low-cut top and for a second, HG - who still crouched next to the coffee table directly in front of the professor - could shoot a glimpse into her perfect cleavage. The Victorian pursed her lips and then forced her eyes to look away. This was inappropriate. Miss Bering didn't know the author was there and Helena surely was no pervert who enjoyed looking at the other woman's features without her knowledge.

Even though it had been a very nice view.  
____________________________________

Miss Bering seemed to have a day off. HG was pleased with it. The other woman worked far too much for the Victorian's taste. And what would Myka Bering do else than working on her day off? Of course. She had corrected her student's papers all morning. HG had kept her company while looking out of the window. The writer had spent the morning surveying the street in front of the house. The passersby in this age of time looked quite different than in her time. As she had seen a woman with a red bobble hat running right behind a squealing toddler, it had filled her heart with warmth. She had remembered her time with Christina and for the first time in ages, she was able to do so without the side effect of feeling empty and mournful.

Then, to Helena's surprise, the American behind the desk in the office room had ended her activity and had went out into the garden. Quite untypically for London, it was a sunny day in early November and Miss Bering spent it taking care for the garden.

Was this work? The writer didn't know but she liked it. Currently, she watched Miss Bering raking the leaves on the garden's lawn. The professor's face under her grey wool cap was slightly blushed red from the activity. She looked wonderful with it. HG smiled, this was far better than working over papers or being in university all day.

As the other woman had put the leaves together in a heap, the author's smile changed into a smug one. Miss Bering turned around to leave the rake in the garden's shed and Helena jumped right into the heap of leaves. Quickly, she kicked them around the garden. In the last days she had practiced her abilty to move objects. HG knew that she was more or less only able to poke or shove them away quickly. She couldn't carry things, she couldn't draw with her fingers on the dusty windows of the garden's shed. But she could mess up these leaves with her feet. She danced in the caused torrent of foliage with her arms spread widely and a bright smile on her lips. And when Miss Bering turned around with widened eyes and cursed loudly about 'the damn wind', HG's smile turned into loud laughter.

"Yes, Miss Bering!" She exclaimed, while dropping to the ground and watching the leaves come to rest. "I'm the wind. I'm that draught in your room and the howling noise in your roof. I'm the creaking doors, the walking noise on your wooden floor and all those objects falling down. And you, my wonderful Miss Bering, are stubbornly blind."

HG lay on the green lawn and turned her head to watch Myka walk into the shed again to pick up the rake. The Victorian's view wandered through the garden and fell on an almost empty flower bed. Nobody had yet done attempts to plant flowers, due to the time of the year, but something intrigued HG about it. She rose from the ground and walked towards it to find a stone. Well, the whole bed was surrounded by this kind of stones, but this one was remarkably different from the others. Firstly, it was right in the middle of the bed, and secondly it was in a slight different colour, a grey with a tinge of red. Helena stared at it, unable to pick it up or move it in any way. She just had this strange feeling looking at the stone. And she couldn't find a reason for it because she had no memory of it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You're something beautiful
> 
> A contradiction
> 
> I want to play the game
> 
> I want the friction
> 
> You will be the death of me
> 
> Muse - Time is running out

Concentrating on Miss Bering's life was so much better for HG than pondering over her own misery. She wasn't any nearer to the answer to her question how she had died or what it had to do with this house. But on the other hand, observing its new owner had given her some better info. The year for example - it was 2013. Since Helena's last memory was buying this house in 1899, she assumed she was dead now for over a hundred years. She remembered being alone and she was glad that now there was someone in her life.

Even though the beautiful Miss Bering couldn't see her.

The writer was desperate to find a way to communicate with her. Miss Bering ignored every sheet of paper that fell down and every rattling dish, causing Helena to just practice her ability to move objects more intensively. One day the professor would notice her, HG was sure.

 _Well, if she would do something else than working for once._ The Victorian thought while she was looking over Myka's shoulder. It was a late evening. The professor was sitting in front of a machine she called 'computer' and reading over an essay one of her students had written. About Oscar Wilde, to be precise. And HG was sure that at least one third of the essay was made up and completely wrong, because she had known Oscar.

When Myka marked a line of text in red, the writer nodded in agreement.

"Yes, I highly doubt that thesis too, Miss Bering." She mumbled and read on.

The curly haired woman sighed in annoyance and started stretching her neck. Helena raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. She watched the other woman's curls fall over her shoulder and expose the soft skin behind her ear. HG bit her lip while she traced this skin with her eyes, following it until it disappeared under the neckline of Miss Bering's jumper. The Victorian sighed and then looked away. The need to touch Myka grew every day and sometimes it was unbearable. It wasn't only that the professor was attractive, HG also felt something for her she would describe as fondness. But she would never overstep this border she had put up for herself. If Miss Bering didn't know she was there, the inventor would never...

Suddenly, Myka rose from her chair and left the office room. HG was surprised.

Usually, the other woman would finish the essay before doing something else. Looking confused, Helena followed Miss Bering through the house and almost naturally into the bathroom but then stopped right in front of the door... which the other woman didn't close. Myka crouched next to the bathtub and turned on the hot water. She opened a smaller bottle and poured a liquid into the water jet. HG's nostrils flared. This scent, she could smell it. So the Victorian watched Miss Bering leave the bathroom and then stepped inside to deeply inhale the air in it. Something told her she knew this scent, but she couldn't classify it. She bent over to sniff the still opened bottle until Myka stepped into the bathroom again, placing a big towel over the heating. The professor walked further into the room, forcing Helena to back against the wall opposite to the door.

The room was long and narrow and so the writer was trapped in it by the other woman's body, the bathtub, and the sink. HG was not content to walk directly through Miss Bering so she pondered over a way to pass her. However, that plan completely vanished from her mind when she saw Myka pulling her jumper over her own head. Dumbstruck, Helena stood in the bathroom and stared at the beautiful professor's exposed chest in front of her. Miss Bering's upper arms and stomach were beautifully toned, the soft and creamy flesh of her breasts shyly peeking over the black lace of her bra. Myka Bering looked alluring through and through.

The writer's lips parted slightly. She could feel a pleasant heat flush through her body. But when Myka reached behind her back to unclasp her bra, the Victorian came back to her senses and forced herself to turn around.

She was completely aware of what the other woman was doing right behind her. HG started counting the glazed tiles on the wall instead of giving in her urge to turn back and watch Myka further undressing herself.

She heard a zipper. 10 tiles.

The fabric of Miss Bering's jeans brushed over the skin of probably similarly toned thighs and lower legs, exposing - 15 tiles, 16 tiles, 14 tiles, 19 tiles... wait a second.

When a mental image of whatever kind of fabric would follow Myka's trousers found a way into Helena's mind, the Victorian forcefully shut her eyes and clenched her hands into fists.

She was HG Wells, a famous author and strong woman. She could handle this situation. She just had to think about something else and wait until Myka would step into the bathtub, clearing the way to the door.

Author... writer... Thinking about something different. Her first short story had been The Lord of the Dynamos. Then she had written The Time Machine. After that, there had been - Water gurgled a little and Miss Bering quietly hissed and shifted (the water was probably too hot). HG heard the professor working on the valves, still completely naked right behind the Victorian.

The Stolen Bacillus. Yes, that was the next story. Currently, the writer had no idea what it had been about. She was almost convinced it wasn't about the beautiful professor's long neck and soft breasts, but by now she wasn't sure of it anymore. All she knew was that she wanted to turn around. She really needed to and bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from doing it.

The Wonderful Visit. Yes, indeed, Miss Bering was a wonderful visitor of her house and now she was naked and all exposed and - there was a splash once again: Myka was now in the bathtub, lowering herself into the water.

Quickly, HG spun on her heels and ran through the bathroom with her eyes closed. The door was still ajar. She didn't care, just forced her way right through its wood, causing the towel on the heating to wave slightly.

When Helena finally got to the hall, the door fell shut with a thud. The writer dropped to the ground and rested her head against the wood of the door. Just now, she opened her eyes and stared into empty space.

That had been far more than inappropriate.  
__________________________________________________

"We need to talk." Helena told the professor the next evening in the kitchen. The writer had hidden in the guest room for the night and the next day. She had been busy sorting out those images in her head she hadn't asked for. All pleasant and easily welcomed images, but still inappropriate. It was utterly wrong to think about the other woman like this. And now she had to tell her.

"Boundaries." HG said firmly, waving her arms to give her words emphasis. Miss Bering was busy with the stove, she cooked a big meal. But the writer had no eyes for it. She was distracted by the warm smile on the other woman's face.

"No." She huffed. "No. Don't do that." The Victorian nodded her head eagerly. "We have to put some borders between each other. From now on..."

Myka hummed a melody in her beautiful and slightly raspy voice which caused Helena to shudder in pleasure.

"... we won't do anything to distract each other. For you this means: No low-cut tops or anything of the sort. No nakedness. Seriously, we keep our clothes on and-"

Myka stepped into HG's personal space to reach for a plate from the top cupboard. Her shirt lifted slightly at the point where it met the professor's trousers. Helena swallowed hard looking at the exposed bit of skin on Myka's spine.

"Yes, no more of that. That's a perfect example for inappropriate behaviour." The inventor said, however not taking her eyes off the other woman's backside.

"Furthermore," She continued as Miss Bering once again worked at the stove, "We close our doors. Closed doors mean that we need our private-"

The doorbell rang. HG and Myka turned their heads in unison to the direction where that noise had come from. The professor smiled while the author blinked in confusion.  
________________________________

Apparently, Miss Bering had a rendezvous with a man called Sam Martino. From what HG could get out of their conversation, they had met at university. Mr. Martino worked in the law faculty. Not like the inventor really cared what that American man did for a living. In fact, she cared far too much for the way Miss Bering was looking at him. Fond and happy, utterly annoying.

Helena was sure Sam didn't deserve to be looked at by Myka like this. Not only for the fact that they met at this coffee bar on campus. HG was living in the same house Miss Bering did, that was far more than this... coffee bar coincidence. That was more important.

So the writer stood with her arms crossed in front of her chest next to their table in the dining room and rolled her eyes, groaned, and snorted at almost everything Mr. Martino said.

Gosh, he was so annoying.

And Myka had cooked for him. HG was sure this meal was delicious but he rarely commented on it. He only talked about himself and the law faculty and his job and university. He didn't compliment Miss Bering or her cooking skills once. And that was what Myka deserved: being indulged with compliments by someone who appreciated her. This Martino man was -

HG closed her eyes and pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead after she had seen how Sam slaughtered the steak Miss Bering had done for him. He had no table manners at all.

When Myka stood up to go into the kitchen and get more wine, Mr. Martino enjoyingly pinned his view on the professor's attractive backside. The Victorian waited until Miss Bering had left the room and then quickly stepped into Sam's personal space to lean over.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Martino." She quietly whispered into his ear. She could hear him inhaling air in reaction, unsure if this was really caused by her words. "But you are not welcomed here." She finished and then slapped her hand against the glass of wine he was holding. It fell out of his hand, pouring its red content over the fabric of the man's white shirt. The glass ended up on his lap. He cursed loudly which caused HG to grin.

Myka peeked her head into the dining room. "Is everything alright?" She asked and then walked quickly into the room when she noticed Sam jumping up from his chair. The glass shattered on the ground. The man spat out a big amount of curses, one more insolent than the other. He took of his black jacket and took a serviette from the table to dry his shirt.

HG had taken a few steps back. She giggled behind the hand she held in front of her own mouth.

"That's red wine!" He grunted at Miss Bering, sounding indignant. HG's and Myka's eyes widened when they recognised that Sam started unbuttoning his shirt. "I'm never going to get that out. It's ruined!" He ranted.

Miss Bering sighed and then stilled his hands. "Sam." She said strictly. "I've seen that movie. Whatever you're planning, it's not gonna happen."

The man looked up and blinked in confusion. "What?" He asked, his voice mirroring his emotion.

Helena looked proudly at the professor. "Tell him." She smiled brightly.

"Bubbly water." Myka replied dryly. "You should pour it over the stain." Then, she nodded. "At home. I think you should go now because I'm not that sort of woman."

"But Myka... I didn't... that's not what I was up to." He straightened himself up and looked down to her. "What are you thinking of me?" He asked, clearly offended.

"I don't know." Miss Bering replied and bit her lip. "But I think it's the best if you go."

Mr. Martino huffed in disapproval but then took his jacket. "Fine!" He spat as he stomped on his way through the house to the door. "That steak was overdone anyway."

When the main door snapped shut behind him, Myka closed her eyes and swallowed. Then she looked a little sceptically around the room and the dinner table. With a sigh, she walked into the kitchen to get a broom.

"I'm sorry." HG said while following her and meant it. Miss Bering was sad, she could see it. But this person hadn't been the right one for the professor.  
______________________________________

This night, Miss Bering was very restless in her sleep. She threw herself from one side to the other and mumbled things Helena couldn't understand. The Victorian leaned over from her side of the bed and saw the sweat on the American's forehead.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Bering." The writer spoke softly into the professor's ear.

"Who are you?" Myka asked in her sleep. HG raised both her eyebrows in surprise.

"Uhm... can you hear me?" It was a desperate question. Helena hoped so hard she would be noticed by the other woman.

"Who are you?" Miss Bering asked again, not giving any evidence that she had heard HG. She was sleeping, Helena knew. But she couldn't help herself and drew her lips closer to the beautiful woman's ear.

"My name is Helena." The Brit quietly breathed into it, hope and a silent plea hidden in her voice.

"That's a beautiful name." The professor sighed. HG's eyes widened.

"Miss Bering." She said quickly. "I'm here. I'm here in your house and I wish you would notice me. I-"

But Myka sighed again and then turned around, away from Helena. After that she didn't reply to anything HG said that night. But the Victorian hoped against all odds that the other woman could hear her. So she didn't stop talking. She told Myka everything she knew about her life, about Christina and her brother Charles. And when she was out of her own stories she started to make up new ones, whispering them carefully into Myka's ear.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An invisible man sleepin' in your bed
> 
> Who you gonna call?
> 
> Ray Parker Jr. - Ghostbusters

"Have you seen that woman with the red bobble hat?" Claudia Donovan asked with an amused voice while entering the house. She has been living here for two days now. HG liked the young woman who took out Myka very often, which on the one hand was something the writer appreciated since she hated that the professor buried herself in so much work. On the other hand Helena disliked being alone.

"It looks a little bit ridiculous, like something her toddler should wear." The girl chuckled a little and then looked at her friend.

"Hm?" Myka asked and glanced over her shoulder to the street. "No. Haven't seen her."

"Not? Well she was right there." The redhead peeked out of the doorway and then sighed.

"Well, it's not important." She said and took off her jacket. She placed the bags they had been carrying with them in the living room. Helena quickly stepped out of her way while she watched Claudia looking around and then flinging herself into Myka's big arm chair.

"So, I kinda hoped it to be more impressive." The redhead grinned and folded her hands on her lap.

Myka quickly entered the living room and placed her keys on the coffee table. She was about to go to the kitchen but stopped, looking at the younger woman in confusion. "The house? You said it was beautiful."

"No!" Her friend smiled fondly. "I like the house. It's super impressive. Hell of a house." She cleared her throat and waved her hands a little around the room. "I meant the ghost."

HG chuckled. "Well I'm sorry to not satisfy your expectations." She said dryly.

The professor rolled her eyes and then headed into the kitchen. "There is no ghost." She replied in exasperation.

Helena waited until Myka was out of sight and then positioned herself next to the coffee table. Easily, she swiped the keys off it. She had practiced her skill to move objects. Still, she was only able to move them quickly, not to carry them or else. But Claudia smirked and looked at the fallen objects knowingly. HG grinned, satisfied. It seemed she had finally found somebody whom she could address.

"Of course there isn't." The girl whispered with a smug smile.

"I don't believe in ghosts." Miss Bering said bluntly, reentering the living room with two glasses of water.

"Me neither." The redhead nodded in agreement, her gaze still pinned to the keys. HG was surprised. She didn't? So what had she been talking about?

"You don't?" Myka Bering's voice mirrored Helena's confusion. "You sounded very differently on the phone."

"I," Claudia begun and took a big gulp from the glass of water Miss Bering had handed her. "I believe in energy. In science. I'm an engineer, Myka, mystery stuff is not really my kind of thing. But well, energy. There are some points in philosophy about our soul just being a form of energy I find totally intriguing."

HG bowed her head in understanding. She could accept that.

"Yeah." Myka replied and shook her head. "Esoteric bullshit." She spat out and dropped herself onto the loveseat.

Helena clicked her tongue in annoyance. By now she was convinced she could be an actually visible ghost dancing right in front of the professor with her clothes taken off and rattling chains, but Myka would still highly doubt her existence. How did that image of herself being naked in front of the professor come there? HG didn't know.

Suddenly, Miss Bering's mobile phone rang which caused both Claudia and the writer to roll their eyes. It could be work.

"Bering?" Myka took the call. Then she nodded and mouthed 'work' at the redhead. She rose from the couch and walked off into the kitchen.

"Well then, Mister Ghost." Claudia said, stood up and placed the keys back on the table. HG immediately understood and swiped them off again. The redhead snorted in response and cast a quick look Myka's back in the kitchen.

"No ghosts at all." The girl spoke to herself. She placed the keys for a third time on the table and had to jump out of the way when Helena shoved them so hard that they flew through the room.

"Okay, okay." Claudia said strictly. "I gotcha. You're here." She shot a glimpse over her shoulder at Myka. "Funny she doesn't get that. Must be annoying to watch her all day ignoring you."

"You have no idea, darling." HG replied and pressed her palm against her forehead.

"So, what can you do?" The redhead sat back onto the armchair. "Flying? Talking? Appearing... Wait, if you could do that you would have probably done it already in Myka's presence, wouldn't you?"

"If I was able to communicate with Miss Bering, I think she wouldn't doubt my existence and I would be a far more happier person." Helena grunted in desperation.

"So you probably can't communicate at all with her, huh?" Claudia concluded like she had heard the Victorian woman.

"Exactly, Miss Donovan."

"Ah, no worries." The girl smiled hopefully. "We will find a way to make that happen."  
________________________________________________

"No way!" Myka and HG said in unison later that evening. "That's just absurd, Claudia." Miss Bering sighed. "I thought I've made clear how I think about this."

"Those things were funny for rich and bored people back in my age, Miss Donovan. I highly doubt it would help us in our situation." Helena waved her hand in disapproval. "I already knew back then that this was utter ...how did Miss Bering express it? Bullshit."

"Myka." Claudia said calmly and placed the Ouija board on the coffee table. "Let's just try. Maybe you're right. You're not, but maybe. Maybe there isn't a ghost in this house. Then using this should prove it, shouldn't it?"

With an angry huff Myka blew the curls out of her face while HG rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Could we maybe stop with the word 'ghost'? It sounds degrading." the Victorian suggested. The redhead grinned at Myka and placed a table tennis ball next to the board. HG understood and stepped forward to the piece of furniture.

"Claudia, ghosts don't exist." Miss Bering declared while crossing her arms. "And I won't-"

Her eyes widened in surprise as the small object hit her at the forehead.

"Ouch!" The professor rubbed the spot where the ball had hit her. "What was that?"

"Someone desperately trying to get your attention." The younger woman replied and sat down on the ground next to the coffee table. HG nodded in agreement.

"Ha!" Myka faked a laugh and nervously eyed the ball rolling over the carpet. "Ha! Of course. Nice try. I won't touch that board!"

"Myka!" Claudia groaned and threw her head back. "Come on! Don't be a sissy. Are you afraid of something or what?" Then she began lighting the candles she had placed on the coffee table.

The older woman started walking up and down in the living room. "Well, it might be that I had an unpleasant experience in Junior High. Which was- Which..."

Helena raised an eyebrow and smirked while Claudia stilled her own motions to light the candles.

"Maybe Roger Pauls stuttered for a whole year after that incident." Myka told the wall she had turned towards.

"Miss Bering, you're really afraid." The Victorian was surprised. Claudia slightly giggled.

"Was your name Roger Pauls until High School?" She asked amused.

"No!" Myka turned around and looked indignantly at her. "I didn't stutter. But that poor guy was so afraid... I just ask myself what had frightened him so much."

"His awful friends, if you'd ask me." The writer suggested. Claudia seemed to agree. "Teenagers!" She blurted out.

"I mean no harm, Miss Bering." HG held up a hand and pressed the other one to her chest. "I promise." She still wasn't comfortable with the way of communication the professor's funny-talking friend implied, but she was desperate to make herself understandable to the others so she really hoped Myka would agree.

"Ah, Myka, everything will be alright. If something goes wrong, I promise I will carry the can for it." The redhead stood up and turned off the electric lights.

"You will carry the can? How do you want to manage that?" Miss Bering asked mockingly. "Will you ask the ghost to eat your soul instead of mine?"

"There will be no soul eating." The writer said indignantly.

"Yeah and I will offer my body if he wants to possess one of us." Claudia sat down on the floor.

"There also won't be any of that." Helena was appalled.

Miss Bering anxiously eyed the Ouija board.

"I promise you everything will be alright." Claudia smiled fondly at the beautiful professor. Myka stared at her and then groaned. "Fine." She rolled her eyes while sitting down on the opposite side of the coffee table. HG joined them, so she kneeled between Miss Donovan and Miss Bering. The two living woman placed their fingers on the arrow-shaped object on the ouija board. While Myka nervously chewed on her lower lip, Claudia started with a little speech.

"We're just two innocent women searching for answers." The girl declared with her head thrown back and her eyes closed. HG looked at her like she was about to go crazy.

"Claudia, what are you doing?" Myka asked.

"You have to say something like this to make clear that we're not up to anything bad." The redhead replied naturally.

"I've been watching Miss Bering for weeks now and you for two days,Miss Donovan. I'm more than sure you don't mean any harm to me." Helena stated dryly.

"Do you think the ghost cares about that?" Myka smirked. "You read that on the internet, didn't you?"

Miss Donovan sticked out her tongue to the professor. "Maybe." She looked down to the board. "So, alright. We have our fingers on the thing, we have the candles, we have stated our innocence. What now?"

"You don't know?" Miss Bering furrowed her brows at the girl.

"I know that at some point we will be able to ask that ghost questions but what before?" Claudia shrugged.

"Maybe we should ask him to appear?" Myka suggested.

"Yeah." The redhead clicked the fingers of her other hand at the professor. "That sounds about right. So we are calling the ghost who haunts this house." She declared with a more officially-sounding tone of voice.

Helena sighed deeply. She didn't know if she could handle this any longer. And they hadn't even started this yet. The Victorian was hoping for an easier and less awkward way to communicate with the two other women.

"So mysterious thrower of the keys, are you here?" Claudia and Myka looked down at the arrow in anticipation. The writer turned her face from one woman to the other until she realised that it was now her turn to answer. Carefully she placed her finger on the object on the board, but couldn't move it, since Miss Bering and Miss Donovan pressed it down with their fingers. She groaned frustratedly. What now?

"It's not working." Myka hissed through her teeth.

"Wait for it. Maybe he has to adjust himself to us." Claudia replied, also through her teeth.

HG wanted to talk to them. She wanted to talk to them so badly. She had been alone for far too long now, while being with one of them. Making Myka believe her existence was everything she needed. Miss Bering- Helena looked at her and felt all her fondness for this woman at once. The American still looked at her own hands on the table in anticipation. Helena could see that her eyebrows were in a slight knit, she seemed to be waiting for a sign from her. HG couldn't wait anymore. She had to ... Softly, Helena moved her fingers in the wooden object. They came in to contact with the professor's next to them. The Victorian noticed how Myka's eyes widened for a second. The curly haired woman shivered slightly, HG could feel it. Wait, she could feel the other woman shiver. It felt differently than anything else she had come into contact with since she'd become a ghost. Carefully and with a need to feel more from the professor, the writer placed her hand over Myka's. She gasped in shock and felt tears forming in her own eyes as she recognised the American's warm and soft skin under her palm. Helena didn't know how this worked, but she was sure Myka could feel her as well. The professor nervously rubbed the back of her neck with her other hand. And if she could feel her...

Gently, HG pressed against Miss Bering's hand.

And the object on the table moved under their hands over the Ouija board.

"Claudia!" Myka yelped the younger woman's name in surprise.

"Don't manipulate it, Mykes." Claudia groaned as she saw the other woman shoving the arrow over the board.

"That's not me." The professor replied, sounding slightly worried.

"God, Myka, I can feel your hand pressing against the-"

"Someone is leading my hand, Claudia! Someone has placed their hand on mine!" Myka yelled in a high pitched voice.

"Oh!"

The arrow moved over the board guided by Myka's and Helena's hand. The Victorian was in awe. She let it rest on a certain place on the board.

"Yes?" Claudia asked surprised. "What does that mean?"

"Gosh, you silly girl!" HG grumbled. "Yes as in Yes, I am here."

"You've asked the ghost if he's here." Myka suggested with a shrug.

"Ah, right." The redhead hit herself on the forehead with her palm. "I remember. So you are here." She addressed the empty air above herself. "Then... what do you want from us?"

"From me, especially." Miss Bering added.

Helena licked her lips while looking at the professor. She wanted so much from her she couldn't ask for with the help of this board because it would take too long to say it. She was just happy the other woman finally noticed her after all this time. Still, it was frustrating. HG looked from Myka to Claudia and back again. Then she continued to guide the curly haired woman's hand.

" _This way of communication is highly impractical and displeases me._ " Claudia read out loud after they she had noted down each letter Helena had shown them.

"Complaining?" The redhead asked, sounding slightly indignant. "That's the first thing you do when somebody communicates with you over an Ouija board?"

Helena rolled her eyes and moved Myka's hand again.

 _I am not complaining. I would just prefer a different one._ "Yeah... Mr. Ghost. Let me get my Ghost Translator 3000 for you." The girl mocked.

"Claudia, you're being insensitive." Myka told her and bit her lip.

"Pardon me." The redhead sighed, but then her eyes widened. "Wait a second." She snapped the fingers of her free hand like she wanted to announce an important thought to the others. "There might be a way." She looked up into the air again. "Mr. Ghost. You are able to shove smaller objects. I've seen it. Are you maybe also able to poke things?" As an answer, HG quickly pressed her the index finger of her left hand into the girl's side.

"Ouch! HA! You are! Ha!" Claudia jumped up from her position on the ground and started running through the house. "HA!" She exclaimed again and again. While listening to her, HG and Myka looked at the professor's hand still resting on the wooden arrow until Miss Bering finally pulled it back. Helena let out a disappointed sigh at the loss of feeling the other woman's warm skin.

Claudia appeared again in the living room. "Laptop!" She announced. "Poking! Typing! ...modern technology!"

The redhead removed the Ouija board from the coffee table and placed the device she was carrying on the spot it had been occupying.

"How about typing your answers?" Claudia asked with interest while working on the object Helena identified as a smaller 'computer'. Myka just stared at the girl.

"Well then. I opened Word for you, Mr. Ghost." The redhead explained and leaned back. "So you can type everything you want."

HG leaned forward and looked at the computer's console. There were letters and numbers like on a typewriter. She understood and closed her eyes for a second to focus properly. Then, she started pressing the keys down. She needed to concentrate hard for each of them so she couldn't write very fast. But it was far better than the ouija board.

_Can we please stop with the 'Mr. Ghost'?_

"Ah!" Claudia pointed at the screen. "It's working. Who is a genius? I am a genius! We are able to communicate now with Mr-"

"Claudia, I think he tried to ask you something." Myka interrupted her.

"Huh?"

_Indeed. Thank you, Miss Bering. I have a name._

"I'm sorry." Claudia bit her lip and suddenly looked nervous. It seemed she wanted to add something, but Helena already started typing again.

_It's H.G. Wells._

Thunderstruck, Myka and Claudia stared at the screen. The Victorian looked at them in anticipation. How would Miss Bering react? Could she finally tell her everything she wanted to-

Suddenly, the curly haired woman rose from the ground. She grinned and then closed the laptop. Quickly, HG pulled back her hands.

"Myka? What are you doing?" Claudia asked surprised.

"That was a nice one." Miss Bering pointed her finger at the girl. "You almost got me. But making up the ghost H.G. Wells was a little too much, Claudia."

Horrified, Helena stared at the closed laptop while feeling the tears filling her eyes. Almost. Miss Bering had almost believed in her existence. And now, it was ruined.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't cry
> 
> There's always way
> 
> Here in November in this house of leaves
> 
> We'll pray
> 
> Please, I know it's hard to believe
> 
> To see a perfect forest
> 
> Through so many splintered trees
> 
> You and me
> 
> And these shadows keep on changing
> 
> Poe - Haunted

"Please." Helena begged and tried to caress the sleeping Miss Bering's cheek. But she couldn't touch it. Whatever had happened during their connection on the Ouija board was now gone. The Victorian's hand wandered from Myka's cheek to her naked arm which lay on the bed sheet. But even though she placed first her fingers and then her whole palm on the professor's hand, it had no effect. She couldn't touch her, couldn't feel her. After hovering for the part of a second over Myka's skin, the writer's hand sunk into it. It was like Miss Bering didn't have skin, but then Helena realised it once again: it wasn't the professor who was lacking a material body. It was the Victorian.

Helena was a ghost and she would always be. Myka had declared to not believe in ghosts and she didn't believe in HG just as much.

"I wish you would believe in me." Helena whispered into Miss Bering's ear, lying next to her in the professor's big bed. The writer felt ironic that she wasn't able to breathe real air but could cry real tears. At least they felt real. Everything about her felt real. But it wasn't. She was a ghost, a phantom, a farce of her own self. How could Myka believe in her when she wasn't even a real person?

"I wish you would believe in Helena Wells. The woman who lies next to you in your bed and desperately wants to be noticed by you. Who..." She closed her eyes and buried her face for a while in the pillow. When she looked at Miss Bering again, her own eyes were reddened.

"Who is slowly falling in love with you. Which is inappropriate, I know. But you've recognised me. Now you know that I am here. Why don't you believe in me? I wish you would-" Her voice broke as her view wandered through the darkened room and she recognised the big and dark shadow on the wall of Miss Bering's bedroom. She surveyed its rectangular shape with furrowed eyebrows and then shook her head.

"No." Helena spoke, suppressing more tears. "That's not true. In fact my wish is a different one. I wish..." She took her eyes from the shadow and watched Miss Bering's beautiful face again. "I wish I wasn't dead. I wish I was alive. I would meet you... maybe on the street. Bump into you by mistake and be ever so sorry about it. And you would slightly blush and rub the back of your neck like you always do when you feel me next to you. And because I would be that sorry, I would invite you for a tea, or a coffee, or whatever you modern Americans like to drink." HG rested her head on the pillow, next to Myka's ear. "And in the end, maybe, I would kiss you. Because I would be able to do so. And it would be light and innocent and beautiful, Myka."

Miss Bering stirred and turned her face right towards Helena. "I know." She said in her sleep. Helena smiled while her heart ached like it always did.  
____________________________________

Miss Bering walked to the coffee table and picked up her keys. She looked at the exhausted Claudia Donovan who was standing wrapped in a blanket in the kitchen doorway, and smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, Claudia. But they really need me at work."

With halfway closed eyes, Claudia stared into her coffee mug and grunted, apparently to show she had understood what the other woman was saying. HG chuckled slightly from her position on the armchair's back lean. That girl was a wonderfully honest person.

"What if you go visit the city on your own?" Myka suggested while dressing in her grey wool cap, her scarf and coat. "There are spare keys in the hall."

"Jet lag." The redhead replied with a scratchy voice.

"So you want to spend your day at home and sleep?" The older woman asked in surprise.

"Jet lag." Claudia said again like it was an answer to Miss Bering's question.

"Okay, Claud. Then do whatever you want to do. I will be gone all day." Myka scrunched her nose. "I'm sorry."

Claudia grunted again, Miss Bering seemed to see that as her cue to leave the house. After the front door snapped shut, Claudia looked out of the living room window and watched Myka start her green Ford and then driving away.

When the professor was out of sight, the redhead's blanket fell down to the ground. She straightened up and then turned around to place her coffee mug on the table. Claudia didn't look tired at all. Intrigued, HG watched her attentively. The girl opened the laptop which still was placed on the table, pressed a button on it so the screen went bright, and then left for the first floor.

When she came back a few minutes later, she held one of those communication devices they called 'phone' against her ear and talked remarkably pre-occupied to another person.

"Listen, Todd. I don't care about that I'm in London and you're in New York. I need those things on the list. And I need them like yesterday, I don't have much time." She sighed and took a big sip from her coffee mug. "Then find a way. For me, Todd. Please... Oh come on! If you won't do it, I want all my World of Warcraft gold back I lent you. ...Dude, I don't care if I don't play this game at all. Your bloodelf priest lady will totally go bankrupt!" Suddenly the girl smiled brightly. "That sounds better, sweetie."

When Claudia hung up the phone, she looked around and then at the laptop. "Good morning, HG."

_Good morning, Miss Donovan._ Helena typed slowly on the computer's keyboard.

"From what I know about Myka, we have like..." The girl looked at her watch. "Nine hours? Maybe ten if she finds a very interesting book in the library."  
_________________________________

Claudia Donovan was a remarkably resourceful person. With this simple phone call, she had organised a acne-prone mid-twenty boy, who brought her a high amount of big metal suitcases right into Miss Bering's house. And although Helena couldn't identify the devices that were in them, she was very impressed. The redheaded engineer started with casual conversation while working with all this technology in a way HG didn't understand. Casual conversation meant that their topic was death. Of course.

"So how did you die?" Claudia asked while she carefully ripped cables out of one gadget and connected them with another.

_Sadly, I don't know, Miss Donovan._ Helena answered the girl's question. Wait, was she really sad to not know how she had died? The Victorian wasn't sure.

"Well, we can find out." The younger woman moved closer to the laptop and clicked until she was on a page called Wikipedia.

"Ugh, you were diabetic?" She asked while reading the article. Helena let out an annoyed sigh.

_No._ She typed in the other opened window on the screen. _That was my brother._

"You had a brother?" Claudia looked surprised.

_Have you actually read that article? It says I'm the last of four children. Yes, it was my brother who was diabetic._

"So why does this article say you were the one with diabetes?" Helena understood Claudia's interest in this. Of course this article was completely wrong, but the girl didn't know yet the reason for this. HG watched her for a second. The girl worked so easily with technology, just like the inventor had done it back in her age. With the difference that HG had to hide while doing it.

_Because he's the one who is shown in all the pictures of this article and who got the credit for my work._ Helena typed into the laptop and felt sad at the thought.

Miss Donovan stared at the screen and blinked in confusion. She was silent for a while in which HG assumed her head sorted out the new information she just had gotten. Finally, the girl talked again.

"But why?" She asked, sounding utterly lost.

_Because the society back then could accept easily stories about time machines but not that someone like me could have written them._

"Someone like you?" The tone of Claudia's voice hadn't changed.

_A woman. Helena wrote slowly._

"Uff!" Claudia leaned back.

_My name is Helena Wells and I had the ideas for those books and did the research. My brother Charles and I wrote them together, but he was the only one who got the credit._

For a few minutes, they both were silent. HG stared at the girl in anticipation and hoped she would believe her. Claudia's face was unreadable for her.

"That's so sad." The redhead said quietly after a while.

The Victorian's eyes widened in surprise. "You believe me?" She asked and then typed it.

"Well, yes. Which ghost would made up such a sad story?" The girl replied and rubbed her nose.

_It makes me very glad you believe me, Miss Donovan._

Claudia looked down to the device in her hand and then back at the article. "Wells died of unspecified causes on 13 August 1946 at his home at 13 Hanover Terrace, Regent's Park, London, aged 79. Some reports also say he died of a heart attack at the flat of a friend in London." She read out loud to the writer.

Helena furrowed her eyebrows as she heard it. She saw no connection to herself in this.

_1946, aged 79._ She typed into the laptop. _I have no memory of this._

"Well, sometimes those articles are not very correct." Claudia explained and backed up slightly to go on working on her device.

_No, that's not what I meant. I have literally no memory of this. The whole 20th century is something I cannot remember._

"You can't remember, HG? What do you mean by this?" Claudia dropped the device on her lap and leaned forward to the laptop, looking utterly interested.

_My last memory is buying this house in 1899. And that's it._ Helena sighed deeply. This puzzle seemed to be far bigger than she had expected it to be.

"So maybe it was your brother who died in 1946 and you died in 1899." The engineer concluded. "And he wrote those books alone after your death."

_Ah, I highly doubt he would have been creative enough to imagine them all alone._ HG typed while looking over the endless list of stories Claudia had just opened for her. _But it made a lot of sense that he was the one who died in 1946._

They both shared silence for a while until Claudia held up her device into HG's direction. It blinked for a moment and then the girl looked at its tiny screen.

"You're literally made of nothing." The engineer said slowly, sounding surprised. "Well, you're ghost, but this is still strange."

_What do you mean? If I'm dead, there cannot be any remains of me here, can it?_

"No, I mean that differently. Look..." Claudia moved over to the laptop like she would assume that Helena was still sitting there. The Victorian looked over the redhead's shoulder on the screen and didn't understand anything she saw there. "You're warm." Claudia explained. "You have body temperature. And that's really strange in connection to the fact that you're still made of nothing. Because warmth is energy. And energy has to come from somewhere."

HG understood. _You mean because I don't eat and drink the energy must come from something else and you have no idea from where._ She typed into the laptop to look if she was following the girl's assumption correctly.

"That's exactly what I'm saying. The good news is: I can work with this. If you're warm, I can set up a thermal camera. And maybe I can make you talk with another cool trick." Claudia looked for a few seconds at the screen of her device like she was pondering over a thought. "Are you sure you're dead, HG? You don't fullfill certain ghosts clichés about being cold and all."

_Well_ , HG replied with the help of her keyboard, _at least I don't feel very alive. And since I was born in 1866 and now it's 2013, I would assume that I am in fact dead, yes. Or I am a 147 years old invisible and intangible woman._

The younger woman pursed her lips. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to offend you."

_You didn't. I'm just sad._

Claudia opened a bigger metal suitcase. "About being dead?" She asked, clearly interested.

_Yes and no. I'm sad about being all alone. You have to know..._

HG sighed and closed her eyes for a second when the pain in her chest increased again. _I had a daughter._ She typed out hesitantly.

Claudia stilled her motions and looked on the screen, mesmerised.

_She died a very short time before I bought this house and I_ -HG stopped writing and squeezed her eyes shut.

"You hoped she would be here with you." Claudia ended the writer's sentence for her. When HG didn't answer, she went on speaking. "Maybe she's somewhere else. Or on the other side... or-"

_On the other side?_

Claudia smiled sheepishly. "Well, I don't know anything about being dead but people keep saying that ghosts have to go 'to the other side' where they are happy with their beloved ones. Or something." She cleared her throat for a second. "Steve says... he's a friend, you have to know. And he's a buddhist. He says that you get reborn after you reach the other side. Live another life. I think that's interesting. Most people who have made a near death experience describe that they could have taken a glimpse at the way to this other side. They describe it as a bright light they want to go into. Something beautiful and compelling."

While talking, the redhead had stared at her feet, now she looked up. "Do you maybe see such a light or something?"

Anxiously, HG eyed the shadow on the wall which has haunted her since she had woken up from her state of half-consciousness and solitude. The menacingly-looking dark rectangular shape was stuck to the wall. It seemed to wait for her, like it was asking her to come over.

Quickly, the Victorian shook her head and turned back to Miss Donovan.

_No._ She answered the other woman's question, not knowing if she was lying or not. _I don't see anything like this._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello?
> 
> Tap in the code
> 
> I'll reach you below
> 
> No one should brave the underworld alone
> 
> Hello, Hello, Hello
> 
> How do I reach you?
> 
> Poe - Hello

Myka came home eleven hours after she had left the house for work. She knew she was a workaholic and that is was actually rude to be gone for so long while having Claudia staying over. But this book that was currently resting in her lap showed a really interesting thesis she had to work through. It had started snowing while she was gone and so she didn't take the risk to check the book sites while driving, even though she had the big urge to do so.

After she had parked her green Ford on her space, she quickly refocused on the book while leaving the car. Her body moved on its own, - taking her small suitcase from the passenger's seat, closing and locking the car's door right behind her, walking through the snow towards the front door. Using this thesis would prove the...

"Watch out!" A female voice with a sympathetic British accent yelped from her left and immediately, Myka felt a small object hitting her arm. It was a snowball, not big enough to hurt her or pull her attention away from her book. Because well, it would finally prove...

"I'm so sorry." The same voice said, now apologetically. "My daughter's aiming skills aren't quite the best yet."

This caused Myka to pull her nose out of her book for the part of a second. In her field of sight were a blurry woman shape with a red thing on her head and a equally blurry toddler shape running into that woman's arms.

"It's okay." The professor mumbled while locking her gaze once again on the text and pondering over this theory and how it could fit into her research.

"Have a nice evening then." The woman said in an almost questioning tone while the American walked on and unlocked the front door.

"Thank you. You, too." Myka replied automatically and then entered her house. The front door snapped shut, Myka stepped naturally over a thick cable which made its way from the hallway to the living room. She followed it, her eyes never leaving her book. When the professor turned a page, she walked in a slight arch to avoid a big flat screen in her way to the coffee table, where she placed her keys as usual.

"Claudia! I'm home!" Myka yelled while walking around a huge technical device on her left to go into the kitchen and...

Wait a second. The cable, the big flat screen and this... huge doohickey. What were they doing in her house?

Now Myka closed her book and looked around her living room. Or what she thought should be her living room, because currently it looked more like a lab. Strange devices were standing everywhere, blinking, beeping, rattling, confusing the owner of the house.

"Oh, Claudia!" The professor shouted in a faux-friendly tone of voice that suggested that her engineer friend wasn't safe at all.

The girl's head showed up from behind the couch. "Oh, Mykes. You're home. Good."

"What," the curly haired woman waved furiously with her arms, "in Shakespeare's name is this?"

Claudia jumped up and busily strolled through the room, then she picked up something from the a big metal suitcase on the ground and handed it to Myka.

"You'll need this." She declared like it was an answer to the older woman's question.

The professor looked at the object in her hand, clearly interested, but still confused. And of course angry. Claudia and she had once shared a flat back in America for half a year. Their commitment had ended because the engineer liked bringing her work home as much as Myka liked doing it.

The object looked like an earphone with... technological stuff connected to it. The professor stared at it. Then, she smelled this typical scent that had always been a part of living with Claudia.

"Have you used a soldering iron in my house, Claud?" Myka asked, now getting very mad.

"Would you mind putting it into your ear?" The redhead worked on the switches on a bigger black object. Myka did as she was asked and then shook her head.

"You know I don't want you using the soldering iron in my place. I can't stand the smell and the fire haz-"

"HG, now please?" Claudia flipped a few switches.

"Of course, Claudia." A female voice with a thick British accent suddenly said right into Myka's ear. She spun on her heels and performed a perfect circle in the living room, searching for the source of the voice. This voice... This voice... Realising that it was in her own ear, she looked at the big flat screen which seemed to be connected to a thermal camera. A woman shape made of white, yellow and red stains appeared on it.

"What the-?" Myka started, flabbergasted. She didn't end her sentence, but stared at the screen, her mouth hung open.

"It's a pleasure to be finally able to address you, Miss Bering." The British woman said and Myka was sure she knew that voice. Myka was sure she had heard it before even though she couldn't find the connection in her head. She couldn't tell where she knew this voice from. Even though it was familiar... far too familiar. The professor's heart suddenly pounded heavily in her chest. Her mouth went dry as she still watched the screen and the woman-like shape it showed. That person seemed to stand in the middle of her living room, while not being there. Not being there at all, like a phantom... Myka swallowed. No. Like a ghost.

"I know it's quite a surprise for you, but I was here for a while now and I'm more than glad-" The voice went on but then something in Myka's mind snapped into place. She bit her lip while her eyes wandered searchingly through the room, mesmerised by this special voice she was hearing from inside her ear.

"Helena?" Myka asked and didn't know why she already knew the name.  
______________________

Feeling utterly happy and not being able to put it differently, Helena stared at Myka. And even though the professor couldn't look back at her, she had finally noticed that the Victorian was there, in her house. Her first reaction had been to ask for a chair to sit down. The curly haired woman had to process this. A ghost in her house, living with her for months now, never being able to reach her. It also seemed to be a lot to take in that this ghost was HG Wells, famous writer, and in fact a woman.

The important part for Helena was that Myka believed her. When the Victorian had talked to her, standing right in front of her and watching the American's response, Myka had shaken her head.

"Why do I know this already?" She had asked, clearly confused but intrigued by the other woman's voice. They had to sort this out. Helena knew that she couldn't hide the fact that she had already told her story to Miss Bering. More than once, again and again she had whispered it into the professor's ear, hoping she could reach her.

And it seemed that she actually had succeeded. Even though the professor hadn't recognised her, hadn't believed in her, she knew everything about HG. And it came back to her mind when the Victorian mentioned it - Helena's voice seemed to reach a part in Myka's brain they both weren't aware of until now.

"I am so sorry if I have bothered you in the last months." Helena said, sitting on the floor and watching Myka on her chair. It was very late, Miss Donovan had already taken place on one of those couches in Miss Bering's living room to sleep on it after she had freed it from cables and strange looking devices.

"But I... you were my only connection to this world. I seem to have linked myself to you because you were the only person that broke my state of solitude and isolation."

Miss Bering stared at the spot Helena occupied without really seeing her.

"Oh God." She replied, shaking her head desperately in reaction to those words. "It's... like...you were alone. For how long? If you died in 1946 and-" Helena could see that Miss Bering honestly cared for the voice she was hearing. And that she was sorry for not noticing her.

"I actually don't know if I died in 1946, Miss Bering. As I have told you, my brother is the person who got the credit for being H.G. Wells and it seems that he's the one referred to in articles and books. I myself have no memory that goes further than 1899." HG explained sadly.

"So it was you who bought this house and not historical H.G. Wells?" Myka smirked and then squeezed her eyes shut.

"I am historical H.G. Wells, my brother is called Charles and he didn't-"

"Oh no! I didn't mean to make it sound this way. I believe you, Helena. I really believe you. Don't take that as an insult." Miss Bering shook her head and bit her lip, with her eyebrows furrowed. HG could see that she was utterly sorry.

"It's just a lot to sort out and my mouth tends to say things which sound differently in my head. I'm sorry." She sighed deeply and rubbed the back of her neck with her palm. Helena noticed it and smiled to herself "It's just- It takes time to sink in that I am talking to H.G. Wells' ghost right here and right now."

"Who is kind of your 'idol or something'?" Helena asked with a smug smile that Myka couldn't see.

"Ah, you heard that? Now I feel more embarrassed than before." Now the professor blushed deeply and lowered her gaze to the ground. HG watched it with pleasure.

"Well, it's not that I didn't like hearing it." She purred.

Myka looked up at the point where the Victorian was sitting. "Really?" She asked shyly and then blushed deeper.

"Really." Helena replied softly. "It's a pleasure to find such an amazing woman like you in love with my words."

"In love... it's... well, okay, it's true. Your work always had a.. bi- big influence on my life and I really-" The professor stuttered all her way through the sentence and then her voice broke.

"But if you said you died in 1899, you cannot have..." Again, Myka went silent before finishing her sentence.

"I haven't said I died in 1899, I have said that my memory only reaches until this point. Which is utterly frustrating. I cannot remember anything from the point when I bought this house, Miss Bering." HG explained her situation. _But I can remember you._ She thought. _Everything about you that happened here in this house. And I want to know you better. Tell me something about you. What was your life like before we met?_

"But you're dead." Miss Bering mumbled, sounding sad.

"Yes I am." Helena hoped that they could avoid this topic for a while. She really wished to talk about lighter topics with the American, because she didn't want to make everything Myka knew about her focused on her misery.

"I'm talking to a ghost." Myka shook her head slightly. "That's just. That's absurd. Pardon me."

"Maybe not as absurd as being a ghost." Helena insisted through the pain the younger woman's words caused inside her.

An awkward silence followed. Until HG decided to break it.

"I'm a person, Myka. The only difference is that I don't have a body like others. And I don't want to be referred to as a ghost. My name is Helena Wells."

"But it's the truth, Helena." The professor closed her eyes and sighed deeply.

"I know." The Victorian replied, feeling desolate. "You cannot understand how much I know that. But I've been waiting so long to be finally able to talk to you, Myka. All these months I tried so desperately to get your attention, to reach you. Please, give me some time to be glad about that I finally managed to do this. I don't want to destroy this moment by being reminded of my state."

"I-"

"I'm a person." Helena repeated. "I'm not the writer anymore who you think I am. I don't want to be a ghost. I don't want you to miss my attempts at flirting with you like you missed my presence."

"You- what?" Myka's eyes shyed away from her, looking quickly at Claudia and then into empty space, avoiding the spot where HG was sitting.

"Don't think too much about not seeing me." Helena spoke in a light tone of voice. "Think about me as what I am. A person sitting right in front of you who wants to know more about you. Who is intrigued by you. Maybe you can forget that I'm dead for a short time and tell me..." She smiled softly at the other woman. "Now that you already seem to know everything about me, you can maybe tell me something about yourself. I really wish to know more about you."

Myka's lips curled into a shy smile, while her eyes wandered back to the spot where Helena was sitting. "H.G. Wells wants to know about my boring life?"

This still wasn't what Helena wanted to hear. She took a deep breath and shook her head. "No, the person Helena Wells wants to know about your life she considers more than interesting."

The professor seemed to ponder over this for a few seconds, then she nodded and stood up from her chair. "I'm going to make coffee."

Myka Bering didn't go to bed this night. While Claudia Donovan slept away her jet lag and exhaustion from the day, the professor and HG sat on the couch next to her. Helena had moved closely to the beautiful woman and she couldn't take her eyes from her lips while Myka talked about her life. About growing up in a book store, falling in love with several authors -and H.G. Wells among them. About her sister and her children, about school and college. Myka Bering laughed and smiled and also asked questions about Helena's life. Not H.G. Wells' life, but Helena's. And the Victorian answered them with surprising ease. Knowing that she was able to talk to the younger woman soothed the ache in her heart so much that she even could mention Christina without wanting to vanish in her own feelings.

In the early morning, when the sun was rising, Miss Bering's eyes had fallen shut to Helena's voice describing Christina seeing snow for the first time. The writer interrupted her sentence and watched Myka's light breathing and the way the corner of her mouth was slightly curled up into a smile. Carefully, Helena leaned forwards and pressed her lips against this certain point, the smiling corner of Myka's mouth. They both sighed, the American in her sleep and Helena at the feeling of the other woman's skin under her lips. She had actually kissed and felt her. A single tear ran down the Victorian's cheek.

"You're warm." Myka murmured.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This world is closing in and while I don't feel a thing
> 
> We've lost the air of innocence we shared
> 
> Once at peace, once so calm
> 
> Whatever woke me up, now it's calling me home.
> 
> Diablo Swing Orchestra - Stratosphere Serenade

Myka woke up a few hours later and didn't feel very well rested. The first thoughts forming in her head were about work and her research, but the second ones were about the happenings of last night. She sat up immediately straight on the couch and looked around. Claudia was curled up on the other couch next to the professor, snoring loudly. Blinking and rattling devices were still standing everywhere, making Myka wonder how they worked. There was nothing to see on the thermal camera screen, which worried the American. The devices around her were proof for what she thought had happened last night, but the fact that she couldn't see any evidence for HG's existence gnawed at her.

"Helena?" Myka asked quietly and then stood up to walk through the laboratory that was now her living room. She headed for the kitchen to make coffee. Maybe she would feel better after that and could spend more energy on the thought why the gho- why Helena didn't answer. She anxiously hoped the other woman was still there. It was far too exciting and amazing to be able to talk with her.

The professor smiled at the thought and started setting up the coffee machine when she felt someone breathing up her neck, leaving goosebumps.

"Good morning Helena." Myka murmured, her smile brightening. She felt relieved at the other woman's presence. "Where have you been?"

The device in the professor's ear was still working, Helena's interesting voice answering her was a proof of it.. "Nowhere in particular, darling. Just watching the busy city from the attic's window."

The words left more goosebumps on the curly haired woman's neck and she could feel that they were very well aimed and were there on purpose.

"You're not really breathing up my neck, are you?" Myka smirked.

"Well, there is air blowing over your perfect skin, but I wouldn't say that I really breathe." Helena's voice replied with a smug undertone. The professor was certain that Helena made huge attempts to flirt with her and she wasn't sure if she was comfortable with it or not. After all, HG was still dead but Myka really enjoyed her presence and her way with words - especially those which sounded seductive. The professor didn't know how to react to them, so she turned around. Her gaze wandered through the room, searching for more evidence of the Victorian's existence but then she once again realised that there was none. As much as Helena was there, felt real and warm, as much she was dead and gone. It was frustrating. But Myka had promised to oversee this for her. She didn't know for how long she could deny the fact that the writer couldn't compete with reality, but Myka would do her best.

"You are interested in what's happening in the city?" The professor asked, curious. Myka decided to lower her gaze to a certain spot on the kitchen's floor so she wouldn't have her eyes darting around the room even though there was nothing to find.

"More or less. I cannot leave this house and the modern days indeed intrigue me, yes." - Helena's disembodied voice replied.

"Wait a minute." The professor smiled softly at no one in particular and made her way through the house to the front door to get the newspaper. Back in the kitchen she placed it on the counter in the middle and started browsing through the pages.

"What do you want to know in particular?" The professor asked and put on her reading glasses.

"You wear spectacles." The Victorian noted and sounded quite surprised.

"Well, yes." Myka tilted her head in confusion, her gaze not leaving the newspaper. "Shouldn't you have found out this by now because you were here all the-"

"I may have recognised that you are wearing them without really noticing how well they suit you." - came HG's response. The professor wished she could see the other woman to read her facial expression. It wasn't that easy to deal with a bodiless voice. But besides that, she blushed and rubbed the back of her neck.

"Well," She changed the topic easily, "what do you want to read first about our modern days?"

The other woman hummed while thinking. "What would you want do read first?" She asked, sounding utterly interested.

"Uhm," Myka's eyes wandered over the newspaper's cover, "the literature review section?"

"Then the literature review section it is, darling." The writer replied with a smug undertone.

Myka browsed through the pages until she found that certain section and spread it on the counter. She looked around, slightly confused because she wasn't sure if HG was reading or not.

The Victorian's voice spoke once again into her ear. "Could you maybe read it out loud?" She asked. "So we won't have problems if one reads faster than the other. And also..." She made a brief pause. "I like the sound of your voice. You have once read out loud my own book to me and it was wonderful."

Myka blushed again. She really had to stop doing that. "Uhm,... t-thank you." She stuttered and stared on the newspaper page without saying any more.

"Only if it doesn't bother you." HG suddenly said and the professor realised she hadn't done as she had been asked.

"No! No, it's okay. I was just..." She took a deep breath. "Well, the headline first. It's a book review. ...uhm... 'Memory is for minds, love is for hearts and souls' it says... and the sub headline 'With her new book 'Losing my bearings' bestseller newcomer-"

"Boring!" Claudia's sleepy voice interrupted Myka. "Geez, HG, Myka. My amazing engineer skills literally made H.G. Wells' ghost talk and the first thing you do is reading book reviews?"

Myka sighed and folded the newspaper. "Good morning, Claudia."

"What would you want us to talk about in particular, if our current topic isn't what you desire?" HG asked and sounded disappointed.

"Well, at first I would want to hear you talking more about how awesome I am in making a ghost talk." The engineer replied with a yawn and then walked over to the coffee machine to pour herself a whole mug.

"Amazing." Helena replied dryly.

"No, but really." Myka studied Claudia for a moment. "How did you manage this? I mean, you're surely not the first engineer who thinks they are talking with a ghost and start building doohickeys. No offense, HG."

The Victorian just sighed.

"Well, at first." The redhead took a huge sip from her mug and then blinked several times. "I am a genius and they are not. Secondly, I had HG helping me, she was some kind of inventor back in her age."

"Thank you, Claudia." Myka could hear Helena's footsteps on the wooden floor. She seemed to be pacing around.

"And thirdly... I have no idea. It just worked." Claudia finished her speech.

"So you're admitting that you have no idea why it worked on Helena and no one has yet found out a way to communicate with ghosts?" Myka concluded and grinned.

"There are far more important questions." The girl clearly avoided the topic. "For example: HG how frakking are you? Why are you a ghost? What do you look like?"

"Yeah that would interest me, too." Myka looked around the kitchen. "What do you look like? I mean, you surely won't look like your brother Charles on the pictures, right?"

"No, trust me. I don't." Helena was silent for a brief moment. "I look far better than him."

"An arrogant ghost, brilliant." Claudia grinned into her mug and then squirmed. "Ouch, HG, stop with the poking!"

Myka listened to Helena's voice describing what she looked like. A picture of a dark haired woman with brown, mischievously gleaming eyes formed inside her head. Even though she couldn't see the other woman, HG had her way with words and descriptions, so Myka was sure the image in her head wasn't far away from reality.  
______________________

At the evening, Myka stood - looking quite awkwardly - in her bedroom and cleared her throat.

"I think I'll change in the bathroom." She declared with a slightly trembling undertone in her voice. HG smirked slightly and then shook her head as the memory of a certain incident back there not so long ago came back to her mind.

"No need for that, darling. I can turn around." She replied and meant it. It was far better to have the other woman's knowledge about her presence in such a situation.

"Promised?" The professor asked and slightly blushed again. Helena enjoyed watching her reddened skin in these situations. She smiled and then turned around with her feet stomping extra loud on the floor. "I'm already turned around."

"Good." Myka seemed to be more comfortable now whilst Helena once again struggled with not turning back. But she respected the other woman's boundaries too much to do differently as she had said.

"Are you wearing clothes?" The professor suddenly asked and HG's eyes widened at the question. She was surprised that Myka went that early into this topic.

"Pardon?" Helena was dumbstruck.

"Uhm... that sounded differently than I wanted it to sound." HG could hear Myka shift out of her clothes and into her pyjama. "I meant that more as ...scientific interest."

This was the Victorian's cue to get back into her old behaviour. "Scientific interest. That's what it's called now?"

"Helena!" Myka protested. "It's more... well, you're dead and I know you aren't comfortable with talking about it, but... well, your clothes didn't die with you so... uhm, practically-"

"You're asking if I'm walking naked through your house without your knowledge." HG smirked again. This was getting more and more amusing.

"Are you?"

"No. I'm properly dressed. Well, maybe not properly dressed for a woman, because I'm not wearing the typical woman dresses one did wear back in my age but more... men's clothes. I liked wearing them when I was performing experiments." HG explained. "It was more comfortable."

"You can turn around again." Myka said and Helena immediately did. The professor had crawled under the bed sheet. "So, you're dressed. Are your clothes part of your ghost appearance? I mean, what happens if you take them off? Do they disappear?"

"Are you trying to get me out of my clothes that early?" HG enjoyed every word by Myka. It was so easy to flirt with her. It distracted her from her mysterious situation and the question of what was happening to her. Why she was a ghost, how she had died...

"Helena!" Myka always seemed to try to sound indignant about her flirting attempts, but sometimes, HG could clearly hear she was enjoying it. And the way the younger woman blushed was just delicate.

"You have to forgive me, Myka. I'm a little longer in this relationship than you are." Helena sat down on the edge of the bed. She noted Myka ignoring this sentence on purpose.

"So..." The American asked. "The clothes question really intrigues me."

"Shall I take of my shirt for you?" Helena licked her lips.

"Well, maybe a shoe?" The professor's eyes wandered searchingly through the room.

"I have to admit that I am slightly disappointed by your request but, well, a shoe it is then." HG reached down to her foot and pulled the object in question from it. She placed it on the floor and backed slightly away.

"And?" Myka asked into the air.

"Well, despite the fact that it's not the most fashionable piece of clothing in existence I cannot recognise anything special about it." Helena shrugged.

"So it doesn't disappear?" The professor asked. "Interesting."

She shifted in her bed to rest her head on the pillow. Then she yawned profusely while Helena put on her shoe again.

"I'm tired, Helena. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night." The professor explained herself.

"I understand, Myka. It's alright. Take your rest. I won't leave." HG got comfortable on the bed.

"Promised?" The professor asked which caused Helena to smile fondly at her.

"I promise, Myka."  
__________________________

 _Pounding._ Like a steadily beating heart with the strength of an earthquake it made its way into Helena's mind, shook her awake. Her eyes flew open. When did she close them? She couldn't remember, but that wasn't what occupied her mind. With aching eyes she blinked against a blinding light, gasping from the new wave of disturbing, earth-shaking noises she heard.

 _Pounding. Pounding._ The heartbeat was the surge of an ocean, breaking right at the shore of her mind, and in the world around her. She couldn't tell anymore where the fringe of her mind was and her surroundings began. It was just -

 _Pounding._ Helena felt the grip of the blinding light all around her. It ripped at her legs, her arms, and at her head. All-occupying, unbeatable pressure pushing and pulling right at her. She struggled, fought it, her hands searching resort in the sheets of Myka's bed, unable to find the grip she could hold herself onto. She screamed, realising that the professor couldn't hear her, because she had taken out that device that was the only connection from Helena's voice to Myka's ear.

HG screamed on the top of her lungs, unheard, unnoticed, while she was teared apart by that light that once had been a shadow on the wall. Panic was not the right description of that unbearable fear flooding her mind, as her body was carried through the room by this mysterious force that surely was not what Claudia Donovan had described as a beautiful compelling light. It was just pain and ache, tearing at her heart. Helena squeezed her eyes shut as it surrounded her completely...

"Helena!" It was her brother Charles. He seemed to search for her.

 _Pounding, pounding._ Right here, right now, in her chest, the ache unfathomable. A heart beating where none had been. Where none should be...

Somebody touched her face and the contact burned her skin. Fingers forced her left eye open, she blinked against the blinding beam of a flash light and gasped. Her hands automatically tried to fight away the other person.

"Helena, you have to stop." It was Charles' voice, not only worried but frightened.

_Pounding. Inside her chest. A heart._

Her lips replied to her brother's request without her intention. Automatically, on their own. She wasn't responsible for her body's actions.

"Charles, let me be. She needs me!" Helena yelled through the disturbing light, through the pain of her heart. Her hand gripped the locket on her chest, feeling the body-warmed metal in her palm.

"Christina is dead, Helena! She's dead! You cannot rescue her!" His hand reached forwards slapping her cheek, like he tried to beat reason into her... but failed.

_Pounding in her chest. Her heartbeat._

"Don't you understand that it's not about her anymore, you idiot?" Helena's lips yelled at him, all by their own.

"It's impossible! Helena, it doesn't work! You have to-" Charles voice was interrupted by hers. She was surprised how mad she sounded. How crazy the tone of her own voice was.

"Let me be!"

 _Pounding. Light. Flooding her mind._ Helena was spat out by the shadow that was the mirror in her memory, always waiting for her, stuck to the wall. She fell hard back on the floor of Myka Bering's bedroom. Her knees and elbows ached, but the feeling disappeared quickly.

"Helena?" Myka's voice spoke through the darkness. "Are you there? Are you alright?"

The Victorian clutched her chest, unable to find her locket. Unable to find a hearbeat. Her chest was calm, motionless. She couldn't feel her heartbeat. She couldn't feel her _heart beat_.

There she knelt, her hand pressed to her chest, searching for something that wasn't there, while having found answers she didn't ask for. Her cheeks were wet and she didn't know why.

"Helena?" Myka asked again. She was looking for something on the nightstand, Helena could hear it. "I could feel you panic. I could feel your fear! What is going on?!" The professor's voice mirrored what Helena felt. Mirrored the terror she was in.

"Memory." HG replied with her voice trembling, and took her hand away from her silent chest.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breathe, echoing the sound
> 
> Time starts slowing down
> 
> Sink until I drown
> 
> (please) I don't ever want to make it stop
> 
> [...]
> 
> You can never leave me
> 
> Will you please complete me?
> 
> Nine Inch Nails - Please

Helena couldn't explain what happened during this incident the other night, and she didn't want to. Being reminded of once's own cause of death was just disturbing as trying to avoid that (especially as badly as her). So she denied it.

The days passed easily and quickly around Myka. They listened to each other's voices and stories like their own existence was just developed around them.

After a while, HG could feel Claudia Donovan watching them in disapproval. The girl didn't show it openly, but HG could see her eyebrows in a tight knit while her eyes were darting around in their company.

At first the Victorian had no idea why the redhead suddenly had such change of heart about her, but then she noticed that this only happened when Helena was around Myka. The writer saw Claudia cross her arms in front of her chest and frown slightly when all three of them were sitting at the dinner table. Helena had watched Myka eating and the professor had blushed about her commenting on it. The young engineer seemed to make attempts to hide her concern, but she failed poorly at it.

Helena could hear Claudia's loud gasp of sorrow when Myka cut her finger with a big knife on another evening. The curly haired woman apparently hadn't concentrated on cutting the salad she was preparing but on Helena's smug-sounding words. The redhead reached forward to stop the bleeding, clean the cut, and then bandage her finger.

"Sometimes I have two left hands." Myka giggled slightly. Claudia nodded, faking agreement, while her eyes darted to the spot where HG was standing. The redhead's brows furrowed, her eyes glistening with wariness.

Helena couldn't explain this behaviour, but then, she understood Claudia's issues with HG's relationship with Myka the next morning, when the engineer was working on one of those devices. The professor was off to work and her friend had promised to get rid of some of that unnecessary technology in the living room. The girl's lips were pursed into a tight line. Helena realised that Claudia saw herself as someone who had to take care of Myka. She was her friend, maybe even like a little sister, but the girl had clearly put herself into the role of a caretaker.

"You're in love with her." Claudia stated, the anger in her voice suppressed.

HG sat on the couch and just stared at her, dumbstruck. How had the girl found out? Helena wasn't even visible.

"I-" She didn't know how to finish that sentence she had just started.

"I haven't helped you to communicate with her so you can take her with you." The redhead spoke with a firm voice, giving each word a special emphasis.

"With me?" The Victorian struggled with understanding what the engineer was talking about.

Claudia turned around, looking blindly around the room while crossing her arms.

"To the other side." She said. Helena automatically glanced at the shadow on the living room's wall. She shook her head and forced her eyes away as Claudia went on talking.

"Or wherever you have to go. You cannot take Myka with you, - she's alive and well and healthy. And she has so much to live for."

"I do not plan on going anywhere, Claudia, so there is no place where I could possibly take her with me. What are you ev-" Helena was interrupted by the other woman, who now openly frowned.

"Maybe you should, HG." Claudia bit her lip right after the words, but then shook her head. "I know it's hard to accept but..." Here she stopped and shrugged.

"But what?" The writer didn't understand.

"You're dead, Miss H.G. Wells, born in 1866!" The girl now almost shouted. "You have been dead for over hundred years now. And Myka is alive. She's alive!"

"You don't need to remind me of that." HG hissed back at her, narrowing her eyes.

"Maybe you need to be." Now, Claudia rubbed her forehead. She seemed to struggle with her words. Helena knew that the girl liked her, but she seemed to be utterly worried about Myka.

"What do you mean?"

"You cannot make Myka fall in love with you." With Claudia's words, Helena was hit by the painful reality. She firmly closed her eyes and clenched her jaw as the pain once again flooded her heart.

"She cannot get lost with the dead ones, HG." The redhead spoke when HG didn't answer.

The Victorian struggled hard to swallow her anger and her pain, then she opened her eyes again and regarded Claudia with a slightly hostile gleam.

"What do I have to lose?" She asked, but immediately regretted those words. She knew the answer already before she heard Claudia's sharp intake of breath.

"What do you have to lose? Oh, Helena. You will lose Myka. You will lose her. And with that we will lose her. Steve, Pete and me. Her friends, her family. And I'm not going to let this happen, Helena." Claudia's head turned to her. The Victorian was sure that the redhead couldn't see her, she could not directly address her. It was impossible. But Claudia Donovan seemed to look directly into her eyes. "I've let you appear, Helena. I can make you disappear again."

"Are you threatening me?" Helena was indignant about the younger woman's words. But she also felt a slight hint of fear.

Claudia blinked for a few seconds, then her eyes started wandering through the room again, proof that she couldn't see HG. Her face had slightly softened and Helena didn't know if it was genuine or not.

"No, Helena. I'm not threatening you. I'm asking nicely." Claudia tilted her head as she emphasised the last word.

Helena just stared at her, thunderstruck.

She understood Claudia, she really did. But she couldn't help herself but want Myka for her own, want her so badly that it hurt. She knew that it couldn't work as much as she was denying it.  
__________________________________

Later that evening, when Myka was in her bed and Helena had softly wrapped herself around her, cradling her without really touching, the Victorian bit her lip as she recognised the affection in professor's eyes.

"I'm glad you're here." The American said with a deep sigh. "I really am. I mean, when Claudia leaves, I won't be alone again. Sometimes, I do feel alone over here. It's not easy to move to a different country all on your own"

Helena hummed in agreement. She understood what the professor was saying. Being isolated was one of her biggest struggles.

"But well, you're here. And I really..." Myka took a deep breath. "I really like you, Helena."

And at those words, Helena buried her face in her own hands, unnoticed by the other woman.

_____________________

Helena could oversee the shadow on the wall, but she couldn't ignore Claudia's words. They had left an imprint on her. As much as she needed Myka for her own, she was afraid of hurting her. And these two emotions battled each other in her chest like warriors, soothing the other always present pain, but causing a new one.

And still, HG caught herself staring at the beautiful professor who lay in her bed and tried to sleep. The Victorian leaned on the doorframe and fought her urge to walk into the room to lie with her.

"Have you been avoiding me?" Myka sat up in bed and looked directly at the doorframe. HG asked herself if the other woman could feel her presence. The professor always seemed to know when she was there. Maybe she heard the Victorian's footsteps.

"Why are you avoiding me?" She now asked with her head tilt and that straight crease inbetween her eyebrows that made Helena almost forget her worries.

Almost.

"I'm not-" Helena began but then stopped. She didn't want to lie.

"Then why are you standing over there and not sitting on my bed as you usually do?" Myka's voice was an invitation, HG could hear it. Helena was weak. So weak. Hesitantly, the writer made a step into the direction of the other woman's bed. She watched Myka lying on her elbows in that bed, the bedsheet fallen from her chest, revealing that low-buttoned pyjama. HG licked her lips.

"How did you know?" She asked, not taking her eyes from the younger woman. The beautiful woman who wanted to have her in her bed. Sort of. For once Helena didn't even know how to put this in words. More steps, she walked around the bed, to her side next to Myka's. Her side, like they were a couple who shared a bed. HG smiled fondly at the thought. It would be perfect if they only could...

"I could feel you." The professor replied and Helena once again licked her lips in reaction. The other woman had said those words already when HG had been in her bed that other time. When she had struggled with her memories... She shoved that thought away because she was weak. She didn't want to remember this right now. All she wanted to see was Myka, on whose bed she was now taking place.

"You can feel me?" Helena whispered, her voice trembling.

"Yes." Myka fell back on her bed and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. HG's eyes were pinned to her heaving chest. "It's like you're there, while you're not there. When I close my eyes, I can forget that I cannot see you. It's like I'm feeling you right next to me. Your warmth, like you're real."

Helena crawled over the bed towards Myka. She couldn't help herself, it was like the other woman's words were magnets for her.

"Like now." The professor said and opened her green eyes again. The Victorian lay close to her. So close, and still couldn't feel Myka next to herself. She knew she would grab into empty space if she would reach out a hand for the younger woman. She knew their skin could never make contact. But the imagination was beautiful, soothing.

"Keep them closed." Helena's lips were caught between her teeth. "I like the thought that you're feeling me."

Myka's eyes snapped shut. She took a deep breath and shifted ever so slightly as if she was getting comfortable against HG's body, as if she was snuggling against her, lying on her back. Her left hand wandered over the bed sheet, - she was reaching out for the other woman for the part of a second. Helena watched Myka in awe. She wished she could lean over, press against her, let the other woman feel her whole frame.

"I wish you could touch me." The professor breathed. HG was weak, so weak.

"Myka?" She asked and wasn't surprised by the rasp of her own voice. The younger woman's eyebrows twitched.

"Can you remember the Ouija board?" The Victorian carefully placed her hand over Myka's left one. And then Myka gasped, because she could feel Helena there... and Helena could feel Myka as well. The writer had no idea how this worked or why it sometimes did and the other times didn't. Maybe it was about the professor's consent.

HG couldn't touch Myka. She couldn't kiss Myka. But she could guide Myka's hand, she could make her reach out for her own face and softly caress the perfect skin on her cheek.

"If I could touch you, this wouldn't be your hand." Helena whispered. "Neither would it be mine. It would be my lips, softly kissing your cheek." Myka seemed to suppress a whimper. There was a noise from somewhere down her throat that encouraged the Victorian to go further. She had forgotten about her doubts, about her attempts to keep herself away from Myka. It was because she was weak, a weak woman without a body, worshipping another woman's one.

HG let the professor's fingertips wander over her skin and then lazily outlined the frame of her lips. With her eyes still closed, the American slightly rose her head from the bed and pressed her lips against her fingers. Helena knew it were Myka's fingers, she knew the professor was kissing her own hand, but in her head, it formed her a different picture. The image that built in her own head, as the American opened her lips and gently sucked her own fingertips - which still lay under Helena's - into her mouth, was a different one.

The writer watched the tip of Myka's tongue curl around her finger and wished it was her own. Wished it was her own tongue and that the other woman could taste it and her lips. And that she could taste Myka.

"Myka." HG's voice was less than a whisper, blown over her own lips, low with arousal.

"I'm sorry." The younger woman let go of her fingers and slightly shifted away but HG shook her head. "Don't be." She replied softly. "I feel the same. I just-" The Brit bit her lip. "Keep your eyes shut. Please."

Helena again pressed carefully against Myka's hand, like she had done it that one evening with the Ouija board. She guided the younger woman's hand lower, to her neck and throat. The professor's nails grazed lightly over her skin, down to her collarbones and to her pulse point. Myka loudly sucked in the air in response and arched her back slightly. HG could feel her weight change on the matress and moaned quietly... and this was where she broke. Where she forced away all her doubts and her attempts to be good and hid them somewhere they would not be found.

Instead, she lead Myka's hands to the buttons of her pyjama. Myka understood immediately and quickly opened them from top to bottom, guided by HG's will, her hand.

"If I could touch you," Helena began and slowly guided the younger woman's hand from her collarbones down to her cleavage, "This would be my mouth and tongue as well." She gently caressed the swell of Myka's breasts with the other woman's hand, causing the professor to moan quietly. The American reached up her other hand and parted the fabric that was still on her chest. She was breathing heavily now, a circumstance well noted by the Victorian. Helena smiled and surveyed what Myka's action just had revealed: Her perfect breasts, heaving with every breath the American took. The professor breathed fast, she whimpered and moaned for Helena. Myka performed the actions which Helena couldn't do on her own, - because she wasn't breathing, because she had no skin, because she was dead.

None of this came to the Victorian's mind. It was just arousal, awe and love which occupied her. Love. She wanted to make love to Myka.

So she let the other woman's hand softly caress those breasts, wander over the skin, explore her nipples. Every action they did together was rewarded with gasps and moans by the professor. HG wanted to kiss her, to devour them all with her mouth. But she couldn't, so she let her hands and words speak instead.

"You're so beautiful when you get aroused, Myka." She spoke into the other woman's ear, knowing that it wasn't really her voice Myka was hearing. Knowing that there was this small device that had to help them. Helena wanted to forget it. "I don't think you know how beautiful you are." Myka's hand circled her own nipple into a tight peak with Helena's support. The professor bit her lip, the corner of her mouth slightly twitched as if she was about to smile.

"I know that you cannot see me, I know your eyes are closed. But if they were opened, you could see my face and the expression on it. It would show you that I'm in awe of your beauty and that..." Helena leaned closer, hoping the other woman could feel her warmth and maybe those words right on the skin of her neck. "I'm as much aroused as you. You arouse me, Myka. Everything about you."

The American gasped loudly, her eyes fluttering as if she was about to open them, but they remained shut. Then, HG lead Myka's hands lower, under the bed sheet, down to the apex of her thighs. She let the younger woman's hand rest there, over the fabric of her trousers, softly pressing her fingertips down.

Myka squirmed under her hand.

"Tell me, darling. If I would be able to touch you there, would I find you wet?" Helena softly asked into the professor's ear, who was now trembling and quivering next to her, her skin flushed red, her breath only a long sequence of quiet throaty moans.

"Would I?" The Victorian asked again, closer to Myka's ear, always closer but never close enough.

"Y- Yes." The younger woman managed to say. And with this, Helena let them reach into her trousers and dip into Myka's softest place. The professor groaned and moaned and HG could feel her fingers working under her own, first light and slowly, then faster and more desperate. While Myka's fingers caused herself pleasure under the Victorian's hand, Helena watched her face. She watched how the other woman sucked her lips between her teeth, how the muscles under her skin moved and twitched and how her eyebrows furrowed shortly before she crossed the edge of her lust.

When Myka shattered apart under her own hand and under Helena's, she turned her head into the Victorian's direction. A deep and desperate moan escaped from her mouth and parted lips. Myka's eyes finally opened, searching for Helena's, but not finding them. The writer looked directly at her, looked straight into Myka's eyes but realised she couldn't reach her. Myka's eyes would never find hers. Helena would never kiss the professor's beautiful mouth, would never touch her fully. She could never wholly worship and love her.

Because although Myka's body had just proved its own existence, Helena wasn't real. Helena was dead. Even though the younger woman maybe had begun to return her feelings, to feel affection for her, they could never bring Helena back to life. And with this understanding HG stared at Myka during her weakest moment, tearing up and hiding it.

"I-" The American stuttered while they both removed their hands from under the sheets. "That was- I wish..." Her eyes darted around the room vaguely into Helena's direction, filled with a plead the writer had to deny her.

"I know." Helena replied softly and swallowed down her tears. "Me too."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See I was dead when I woke up this morning
> 
> And I will be dead before the day is done.
> 
> Florence + The Machine - Seven Devils

Myka's behaviour changed over the next days. Helena was worried. She found Myka deeply in thought, almost as if she was sleepwalking. The professor read a book or worked over one of her student's essays but when Helena looked more thoroughly at her, she realised the younger woman's eyes weren't moving. Myka Bering was so closed-in within herself that HG couldn't find a way to reach her.

It was this one evening when the professor asked for the first time to sleep alone since their shared night that Helena looked at the shadow again. The guest room was occupied by Claudia, but the other side of the bed in Myka's room had to stay empty. On Myka's word. The American said she needed time for her own.

Helena thought she had no place for herself but then she found the garden. And in the garden, she found the stone again. The heavy object remained in the empty flower bed like it was marking something. HG reached her hand out for it, but as much as she couldn't lift it she couldn't dig it up either. She couldn't do anything but stand in front of it, her hands on her hips, staring. The stone was a mystery. She had no memory of it and also no idea why it caused such an unusual feeling inside her stomach. She felt intrigued by that stone, but she was unable to get it.

When she turned around, the shadow stood right in front of her, right out of the blue. Helena yelped slightly as she almost made contact with it. She jumped back, her eyes wide in shock.

The shadow wasn't stuck to the wall anymore. It wasn't waiting,- now it beset her. Helena's nostrils flared as she caught that smell she had already witnessed in Myka Bering's bathing supplies. And she remembered it perfectly.

Apples.

A compelling scent, trying to draw her in and get her.

"Helena!" She heard her brother's voice calling for her, but muffled, quiet. Almost unrecognisable. "Breathe!"

"No." The inventor said and lifted up her hands to get some space between the shadow and herself. She looked up to the darkened window to Myka's bedroom.

"I'm not ready." HG told the shadow as if it could hear her. As if Charles could hear her. "And I highly doubt I will ever be."  
________________

Myka sat in her office room in university and pondered over her research. She tried to prepare a lecture, but somehow she couldn't concentrate on work. Instead, she stared at the glass of water on her table and played with her pencil. Her head rested on her hand on the table.

A head peeked into the doorway. "Professor Bering?" It was one of the doctoral students, Myka had forgotten her name, but she had seen her before several times. She had blonde hair and sympathetic, attentive blue eyes.

The American quickly looked up and sat up straight. She was interested in looking professional in front of the students. But her attempts were now utterly ruined by the fact that she had hit her knee at the table and the water glass fell over, pouring its content all over the table and her research.

Myka cursed loudly.

"Oh, Professor Bering! I'm sorry." The student quickly crossed the room and came to her table, trying to get those books out of the water.

They quickly cleaned up the mess together and the other woman brought Myka paper towels from their faculty's kitchen.

"Thanks, Miss...?" The professor was reminded that she didn't know this doctoral student's name.

"Thompson." The student said with a bright smile while smoothing her red coat. "Ruth Thompson."

"Ah right!" Myka replied while tossing the wet paper into the bin. "The one with the strange Shakespeare thesis."

"Speaking of that..." Miss Thompson sat down in the chair in front of Myka's desk. She opened her bag and pulled out a few books to place them on the table. "I wanted to ask you about your opinion on my thesis."

Myka tilted her head while reading over the backcovers of Ruth's research books. "Ah..." She grinned a little mischievously. "I suppose that's not part of your research, is it?" She pointed at a copy of a book called 'Losing my bearings' lying under a sonnet collection.

"Oh! No!" Miss Thompson blushed deeply and quickly put that book back into her bag. "That's for my own entertainment."

The professor leaned back in her chair. "Is it any good? I've read about it in the newspaper."

"Oh, Professor Bering. It's bloody depressing." The student replied and rolled her eyes. "A woman living in an old house, hearing a heartbeat which is not her own." She leaned her head from the one side to the other and looked directly into Myka's eyes. "It's also very creepy."

"Sounds a little like Poe." Myka smiled fondly at the other woman. "So, your research?"

Ruth Thompson stayed for about an hour in professor Bering's office, intensely discussing the thesis. Myka actually brought some coffee as they got deeper into the topic. Miss Thompson had many questions for the professor and Myka was proud and happy to be able to answer them all thoroughly. As Ruth had emptied her coffee and cleared her books from the table to make her way out of the office, she bit her lip.

"Miss Bering?" She asked, sounding a little shyer than in the beginning.

"Yes, Miss Thompson?"

And with that, the doctoral student asked Myka a question she didn't know how to answer.  
_________________

Helena could feel that something had happened. Sleep-walking Myka had turned into complete avoidance Myka. The American sat at the dinner table and stared into empty space, and the device she had to use to communicate with Helena lay on the other side of the table, unnoticed. The professor didn't even make an attempt to put it inside her ear.

HG had to talk to the other woman. She had to find out what had happened, what was going on. She concentrated hard to shove the strange looking earplug over to Myka, whose eyes closed firmly as it stopped right in front of her.

The Victorian watched the younger woman eagerly. She had to put it in. She had to talk with Helena. A sigh of relief escaped her lips when Myka actually picked up the object and placed it where Helena needed it to be.

"What is it, darling?" HG asked quickly. "I can feel that something is wrong."

Myka hummed, while her eyes were pinned to the table in front of her. Her head was bowed, she didn't look up. There was something utterly wrong.

"Myka, tell me. Please. I cannot see you suffer like this." The Victorian declared and Myka's head snapped up, her eyes darted to the spot where Helena was standing.

"That's the problem, right?" Myka asked with a undertone in her voice HG would almost describe as angry. The writer took a slight step back, confused.

"I suffer, Helena. I suffer." The professor mumbled and looked back down at the table. She swallowed and then took a deep breath. "I've met someone..." She started and then went silent.

"You mean...?" HG didn't dare to finish that sentence. She didn't dare to think about the meaning of what Myka had just said to her. The reality she had built for herself shattered apart right in front of her and she knew she was helpless. Unable to fix it, unable to undo what they had done.

"There was a doctoral student inside my office today. Ruth Thompson. She was nice and interesting and we talked a lot. And in the end, she invited me for coffee." The professor sighed deeply. "She asked me for a date with her."

A noise escaped from the Victorian's throat Helena herself couldn't identify. It was anger, it was jealousy, it was understanding. Because she knew she could never claim Myka for her own. She knew they could never be.

"It's not that I want to go out with her. It's just... It's just that I didn't know what to say to her. I couldn't tell her that in a strange way I am taken. That in a strange way, I'm in a commitment with a ghost." The smile Myka was showing was filled with pain. "And even though having a date with a doctoral student would be complicated, it would never be as complicated as it is to be with you."

"Myka I-" Helena shook her head in desperation.

"It's not because I cannot touch you. It's not because I cannot see you, Helena." Myka bit her lip and closed her eyes, a single tear was running down her cheek.

Now she stared into space, with empty eyes. "It's because you cannot find peace with me, Helena. And neither can I."

HG stepped closer to her, trying to reach out, only to grasp the emptiness. "But Myka!" Her voice was nothing but a plead. "I love you."

Myka's reaction was a sharp intake of breath, she leaned her elbows on her table and started twisting her hair. "I cannot." She said and pursed her lips before continuing. "I cannot fall in love with a ghost, Helena."

Helena's fist hit the table with a loud thud. "Damn it, Myka. I'm a person!"

The professor was silent for a while. Then she looked up, vaguely into Helena's direction. "Yes, you are. I know you are. You don't seem to understand how well I know that you're a person, Helena. You're a wonderful person." She looked down to her hands. "But you're also a ghost. You're dead, Helena."

"But I don't want to be dead."

Myka shook her head. "And you're denying this. You're denying this so hard. I do understand that it hurts, of course I do. But I keep asking myself what circumstance it is which you are denying along with your death. Something keeps you from accepting peace." Now the American once again took a deep breath. "And I don't want to be the person who supports your denial. I cannot be the person who keeps you from moving on."

"Moving on?" Helena huffed angrily. "Myka, I don't want to move on if it means leaving you. There's nothing to move on from. My life is over and-"

"That's true." Myka's voice was scaringly calm. "Your life is over, Helena. But mine isn't. And I'm afraid that I would want to follow you somewhere I'm not supposed to go."

Helena didn't know how to react. She just stood there, her lips parted, tears in her eyes, while shaking her head in disbelief about what she just had heard.

Myka took another deep breath. "I wish it was you. I wish it was you so badly, Helena." She closed her eyes and HG could see the tears running over her cheeks.

"Myka, I- " The Victorian had begun that sentence before realising how to end it. She was out of words, knowing that the other woman's were true.

"I'll go to bed." The professor stood up. "I'm exhausted." Slowly, Myka took the device out of her ear and placed it again on the table. Then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

She had closed the door. Helena stared at the wooden object and at the shadow right next to it. She then buried her face in her hands. Myka had closed the door.  
____________________________  
Claudia Donovan sat on the bed in the guest room, reading a book. Quietly, Helena took place next to her. Apparently, the girl had heard the Victorian's footsteps on the wooden floor, so she immediately took her hearing device from the nightstand and put it into her ear.

But both women stayed silent for a long time, in which Claudia slowly browsed through her book while Helena struggled for words. The redhead waited eagerly. When HG started speaking, she looked up, closed her book and placed it in her lap.

"Will you take care of her?" Helena asked calmly.

Claudia's face was sad, even though she smiled. She looked like she made big attempts to hide her pain. HG could tell that the girl didn't want to face the meaning of Helena's words, that she didn't want the Victorian to go. But Claudia Donovan was strong and she knew what was necessary.

"Of course I will." She replied equally calm.

The writer nodded. "Good." They went silent.

"That's all I'm asking for." Helena spoke on after a while. "That you make sure she's alright. That you make sure she won't mourn me too long. Because... I think that what you asked me not to happen already happened."

The redhead clenched her jaw. "I know, HG. ...Myka has fallen in love with you the moment she heard your voice. And... I can understand her."

Helena looked up, directly into Claudia's face and saw she struggled with holding tears back. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're a good person, Helena Wells. And that I'm glad to.. well, to literally have found you... And honoured." Now Claudia reopened her book and looked firmly at the text, her eyes not moving.

Helena surveyed her for a brief time. Then she smiled. "Thank you, Claudia. Even though our time together was short... I would honestly love to consider you a friend. If that's alright for you."

Claudia looked up from her book again and smiled. "That would really make me happy, HG."  
_________________________

When Myka woke up the next morning, she felt empty. She sat up straight in her bed, only to jump out of it immediately afterwards. Taking big steps, she ran down the stairs and made it into the living room. "Helena?" She asked quietly, hoping, wishing the other woman was still there. She regretted everything she had said the evening before. She would take everything back if that meant that HG was still there.

There was her laptop on the coffee table, opened and running... and it was displaying a document with a small text in it. Myka stepped closer to read it.

_I still love you, Myka Bering. And I hope Miss Thompson is quite a catch._

"Helena?!" The professor yelled. She was afraid of what this message could mean, she was so afraid, her heart felt empty. Helena could not be gone. Desperately, Myka made it into the dining room, putting her device from the dinner table into her ear. "Helena?" She breathed. "Oh, please. Don't be gone."

"I'm here." She heard Helena's voice and smiled. Her breath quickened. Quickly, she spun around on her heels.

"I take that back!" Myka spoke so quickly that she had problems forming her sentences. "I take everything back. You cannot leave me. I can't have you leaving."

"I'm here, Myka." HG replied and Myka could hear the smile in her voice. "I'm not leaving, Myka."

"Promised?" The professor asked quickly, her heart beating heavily in her chest.

"I'm here, Myka." Helena replied.  
______________________________

For the first time since Helena had met Myka Bering, she was glad that the professor couldn't see her face.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She will know, tomorrow,
> 
> When sleep leaves her behind,
> 
> That i'll nevermore return,
> 
> That i have died this night.
> 
> Now I cannot linger,
> 
> What remains is memory.
> 
> I promise you eternity
> 
> Beyond, deep inside me!
> 
> Schandmaul - Abschied (Translated by Aimofdestiny)

Helena sat in front of the shadow, eagerly surveying its big rectangular shape.

She was afraid of what could wait for her on the other side. She had accepted that she was dead. However, Helena knew that she had to leave. She knew that she couldn't stay here, but not because she had to move on like Claudia Donovan or Myka thought. Helena didn't know what moving on meant for her. Christina was dead and she was dead as well. To what could one move on when one was dead? But when Myka had remarked that HG was denying her own death, she had felt that the professor's words were true. It wasn't only that she was denying her own death, she was clinging so hard onto the younger woman's existence, onto the world she had created around both of them that she risked to pull Myka out of the real world into her illusion. Her world was made up, it wasn't real. And if the world one was living in wasn't reality, how real could one be?

Was heaven a real place? Was the afterlife a real place?

Helena didn't know. Everything she knew was that she was afraid. Afraid to move to the other side of this shadow and find nothing but pain again. But she was even more afraid of destroying Myka.

Helena Wells loved Myka Bering far too much to hurt her. To make her feel the pain of their relationship every day. To rip her out of the real world and trap her with herself in this house.

Helena was not trapped by anything in this house. She was trapping herself in it. She couldn't leave the house through its front door. But there was another way to leave it, and this meant to leave Myka Bering.

She could only hope that Christina was waiting for her on the other side. That she could be happy there, that there was something out there that was comparable to what Claudia Donovan had described to her.

And that... one day, maybe Myka would be there with her as well. That maybe her heaven would mean being with Christina and Myka. To have them both.

And that this world wouldn't only be a made-up world, but reality.

Helena could never be sure what was waiting for her behind that shadow if she didn't dare to look at it and face the mystery behind her death. Denying it wouldn't change it at all.

There was this scent again, emanating from the shadow right in front of her. Apples. She shook her head and once again heard her brother yelling her name, trying to reach her.

"I'm not ready, Charles." She quietly told the shadow. Then she looked over to Myka Bering's bed where the curly haired woman slept in oblivion. Helena's smile was filled with pain and sorrow. "But that's not important anymore."

She looked at her own hands, stroked their non-existent skin. "The truth is, Charles, I don't want to be dead. Thinking about my own emotions, all that pain in my heart, I believe that I did back when Christina died, right? That's why you are yelling at me like this. Because you saw how I was slowly killing myself while searching for a way to bring her back."

The writer stood up and turned away from the shadow to move over to the sleeping Myka. She looked at the device on the nightstand and then watched the other woman sleep. She watched the professor's beautiful face, her innocent silence.

"The truth is, Charles, you don't need a knife or a gun to kill yourself. If you're putting yourself into the same situation every day - a situation that brings you only pain and hurts you, because you struggle with accepting something about your life - you're slowly killing yourself as well, right?" Helena reached out a hand and softly stroke the other woman's skin. She smiled as she touched her, as she felt Myka's perfect skin under hers. "And with that you're killing the people who mean something to you, too. Charles..." HG took her hand from Myka's face and smiled as the other woman's eyebrows slightly twitched, "I don't want to be dead. I don't want to be dead at all. I want to live. I want to see and hear. I want to taste and smell. I want to feel. I want to live."

She clenched her jaw as she felt tears forming in her eyes. "But I guess that's not my decision anymore, am I right?"

"Helena..." Myka whispered in her sleep. The Victorian shook her head and leaned over to press a soft kiss on the professor's forehead.

"Whatever awaits me on the other side of the shadow cannot be worse as what I'll do to you if I stay, Myka." Helena whispered into her love's ear. "So I'm leaving. That's why I couldn't make that promise. I'm not ready to be dead, darling. But I have to take care for the person I love. Christina died and it wasn't my fault, I couldn't do anything to rescue her. But I can make sure that you will be alright, Myka." She took a step back. "And that's why I have to leave."

As Helena turned around, she recognised the shadow had changed.

No, it hadn't changed. It has always been like this, she just hadn't looked properly enough at it to realise that it wasn't a shadow. It was a door.

Intrigued, the Victorian stepped forward and reached her hand out for the doorknob. She didn't even have to pull, but just place her hand on it and the door swung open immediately. A light shone on her face. And this time it wasn't hurting her eyes. The light was warm, but still bright enough that it blinded her. She couldn't see whatever was awaiting her. All she could do was take a leap of faith through the door.

Just before she could move, before she could leave Myka forever, Helena heard the professor gasp behind her. Immediately, the Victorian turned around to face the other woman, while gripping her hand onto the wood of the doorframe.

Myka sat straight up in bed, her hand pressed the bedsheet to her chest. The writer couldn't tell if she was awake or not, her eyes weren't distinct enough. But Myka seemed to look directly at her, her lips formed a bright smile and her eyebrows were raised in surprise.

"Oh my god, Helena." The professor shook her head and Helena was sure there was a single tear running down her cheek. "You're beautiful."

Helena smiled fondly at the American, while taking a step back into the light right behind her. "I love you, Myka Bering." She said, not taking her eyes from Myka. And then there was only light.  
____________________________

Helena watched the world form right in front of her. It emerged from the bright light that surrounded her. She narrowed her eyes to find herself standing on a meadow, water in front of her, trees right behind her. How had she made it here? When she looked around it came back to her mind. Through the shadow door in Myka Bering's bed room. She was on the other side and-

A lake? Her other side, her afterlife was a meadow and a lake? HG suppressed her urge to comment on the lack of creativity. What was she supposed to do? Gather flowers and fish? Bask in eternity? She had left Myka and this was all she got? Was this supposed to be her happy place? Where was the connection to her life? She hadn't even been that often at lakes, just once for vacation and-

"Mummy?"

Helena froze.

There was a jetty over there. And on its end, there stood a small figure. She couldn't make her out enough to be sure... but...

"Christina?"

Without wasting any time, HG started running. She sprinted through the grass of the meadow towards the lake. She took big steps over the wooden planks of the jetty, reaching its end as fast as she could.

There stood her daughter. Right in front of her. Desperately, Helena wrapped her arms around the girl to pull her into a tight hug. Her hands gripped onto Christina's raven black hair while she covered the girl's face with quick kisses. She felt like her heart would burst. But it was no pain, it was relief.

"Christina!" She couldn't stop kissing her daughter. "I missed you so much."

"Mum?" The girl asked and sounded confused. The writer took a moment to look into her daughter's brown eyes. She could look at them forever. This was how she could spend eternity. She was sure of it. It had been the right decision, it-

Suddenly, the world around her started shaking with a loud shattering noise. And Helena once again felt pain inside her chest. She looked up, confused, afraid. "What's going on?!"

"Helena!"

It was Charles's voice which interrupted her moment with her daughter.

"Mummy?" The girl asked. "What are you doing here?"

Quickly, HG shook her head. "I came here for you, darling. I came here to be with you!"

Christina furrowed her eyebrows while tilting her head. "Is that the truth?" She asked quietly. Helena almost couldn't hear her voice over the second wave of earth shaking. Her chest tightened under the indescribable pain she was feeling. The writer had to let go of her daughter while she tumbled back, screaming.

"Christina, love? What is going on?" She demanded to know when the wave was over, while clutching her chest and looking directly into her daughter's warm eyes.

"Why are you here?" Christina asked once again and sounded a little angry. "Mum, tell me the truth."

Another shake, another surge of pain. Helena heard the wooden planks rattle and the water under them gurgle. She screamed against the pain in her chest, not finding a way to soothen it.

"I came...!" She pressed over her lips.

"Helena, dammit, you cannot do this to me!" Charles's voice, again. Desperate, filled with fear.

"Why?!" Christina almost yelled at her.

"Because I wanted answers!" Helena went down on her knees, fighting another earthquake, the one around her and the one in her chest.

"Helena!" Her brother's voice made this world shatter apart. Made her heart burst.

"Answers to what?" Christina came closer and carefully placed her small hand on her mother's shoulder. The touch was soothing, and helped Helena to concentrate.

"To the mystery of my death, Christina. Why I cannot remember it. What I am denying about it." The desperate writer told her daughter. She looked up onto the girl's face who smiled fondly at her. The next shake and pain forced Helena to fall back, dangerously close to the jetty's edge. She lay there, her eyes pinned to her beautiful girl.

Her daughter came closer. She didn't struggle with the quakes that ripped Helena's world. Carefully, Christina kissed her mother on her forehead and then looked deeply into her eyes.

"I understand, mum." She spoke and her voice sounded sad. "I understand." She smiled. " I love you, mum. And I'll wait for you. So we can be at the lake together. My questions will answer yours."

Now, Christina leaned close to Helena's ear and whispered. "You're not supposed to be here."

With that, there was another earthquake and more pain in Helena's chest. Then Christina gave her a push. HG could actually feel the small hands of her daughter pressed against her, thrusting her over the edge. The Victorian's eyes widened in surprise as she fell.

Helena hit the cold water with a loud splash. She could hear it gurgle and close right above her. Christina stood at the edge of the jetty, watching her sink, watching her drown. Helena stared at her daughter's smile through the lake's surface.

The writer reached out a hand in the dark water, wanted to yell her daughter's name. But there was no air in her lungs. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't push air out of her mouth. There was no air. She needed to breathe.

"Helena!" Once again she heard her brother's voice. "Breathe!"

She wanted to. She really needed to breathe. Her lungs burned, while the darkness of the lake swallowed her. Christina looked smaller and smaller while Helena sunk deeper and deeper in the water.

"Breathe!"

Her lungs screamed for air. Another wave of pain hit Helena's chest and then...

_Pounding._

She knew that sound. She had heard it before.

It was a heartbeat. Helena was still reaching out for her daughter while she heard the sound of a beating heart. Now her hand wandered to her own chest. It ached brutally.

_Pounding. Pounding._

Right here, right now. It took time to be able to bear the pain. The darkness around her swallowed her mind. She closed her eyes.

_Pounding. Pounding._ In her chest. A heart.

Her heart!

Her heartbeat! Her _heart beat!_

Helena's eyes snapped open and she blinked against the sudden light.

"Helena!" Her brother's voice again, relieved. The inventor desperately sucked in the air around her, while her hands waved around in the room above her, trying to literally collect the air. Her lungs welcomed it with a slight ache.

_Pounding. Pounding. Steadily._

But she breathed. Blindly, HG searched for something to hold onto. She gripped onto fabric, felt another body and pulled herself up. She breathed desperately and loudly, surprised by the raspy noises she made while doing it. Her whole body ached, the light hurt her eyes. Nausea hit her, while her fingers still gripped firmly into the fabric of her brother's shirt. She felt his arms wrap around her and pull her out of that chair she was in. Helena could feel Charles struggle with her weight, then they fell over to the ground. She pulled up her arms to break the fall, hitting the floor with a loud thud. It caused her elbows to hurt, she could feel them bruising. Her fingers wandered over the floor's wood. It felt like wood. The nausea increased and HG gagged. She disgorged on the ground, her heart beating loud and achingly.

Her body felt old, but complained like the one of a newborn child.

"Helena, your heart stopped beating." Charles spoke right next to her. She could feel his hand stroking her back.

Her eyes still felt blind, but she could now recognise more shapes. She looked around the room as another wave of nausea hit her. She leaned forward under the stomach cramps.

"You have stopped breathing, Helena. You were dead! You were dead!" Charles took a deep breath. "This has to stop right now."

HG's hand reached up to her chest. She felt the steady thumps under her fingers. They were her heartbeat. The corners of her mouth twitched while she realised that she was alive. Then, her hand clutched the locket hanging right above her heart.

Breathing heavily, the woman rolled on her back and found her brother's face. He hovered over her, his face angry, but also relieved. "You have to promise me you'll never get into that machine again." He whispered while he pulled something from her head. Something like a helmet or a crown. "You cannot destroy yourself with this."

His sister looked into his eyes only to find her own reflection. She looked gaunt, her cheekbones and eyes far too big for her own face. The shadows in it and the bloody cracks on her lips frightened HG.

She looked like a ghost.

Helena reached out a hand to wrap her arm around her brother's neck and pull him close. He made a surprised sound when she buried her nose in his neck and inhaled his scent. He didn't smell like apples, but he smelled good. Like her brother. She could smell, hear, see, and feel him as he was right there in front of her. He was real and so was she.

"I promise." Helena whispered into his ear and was surprised how ill she sounded.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In our hourglass the last grain of sand will fall,
> 
> I have won and I equally have lost.
> 
> But I would never change a thing:
> 
> We own it all inside our minds;
> 
> It remains with us as a memory.
> 
> Between day and night
> 
> Slips silently the dusk.
> 
> Söhne Mannheims - Und wenn ein Lied (translated by Aimofdestiny)

Myka stood under the shower and let the water run over her face. Her eyes were closed as she tried to motivate herself to get out. Not that she saw any sense in it but she knew it would be expected from her.

She had known that Helena was gone in the moment she woke up. It hadn't been fear that she could have left like that one morning when she had run down the stairs to see the opened laptop and the words on its screen. It just had been some kind of awareness. Helena had left her and Myka had known it the moment she had opened her eyes.

She had known when Claudia had waited downstairs for her, just to pull her into a tight hug and let her cry on her shoulder. She had known when the house felt empty for the first time since she had moved in, because even before Myka had heard Helena's voice for the first time she knew the other woman had been there.

And now it was empty. Because she had sent Helena away.

After a while even Claudia had to leave. Although the engineer had taken all days off work she could, time ran out in the end.

And now Myka was alone. Her friends called her every day, even Steve. The professor didn't know what Claudia had told them, but when Pete had sounded on the phone like something was gnawing on his heart, Myka had realised he knew something.

Every time they called she assured them she was fine, even though she wasn't. Even though she didn't know how to make it out of this shower now.

Myka had told Helena to move on and now she didn't know how to do that herself. Because the truth was that her heart ached without the other woman. That she felt utterly lost and that she - when she closed her eyes in the evening - was seeing a face she had never seen in her life.

Like right now. The water was running over her skin, warm, soothing and she wished that when she opened her eyes she would see Helena in front of her. That the water's warmth was in fact the Victorian's. That she would hear her voice again.

That she could be with her.

Myka took a deep breath and opened her eyes. Of course Helena wasn't there. Because she was dead and now she was gone, too.

She had this realisation every day now, even though she had met her already dead. But they both had been denying it back then and now there was no way but to accept it.

Myka turned off the water and stepped out of the shower to cover herself in towels.

This morning, Ruth Thompson had called and once again asked her for a date. And because Myka had told Helena to move on, she had decided for herself that she would do it as well, even though she didn't want to. So she had agreed to get picked up by Ruth two hours later and now she was preparing for it.

In the bedroom she put on her good green dress, dryed her hair, put those unruly curls into shape and put on some make up. It wasn't like she felt the need to go out with Ruth, but she could use a distraction.

At 1 pm, she waited in the living room, all dressed in her coat, staring at her keys on the coffee table. Did she really want to do this? She didn't know. Her heart had no answers for her, it just told her that she was missing Helena.

The doorbell rang and Myka rose from the couch in reaction. She took her keys and moved through the house like a sleepwalker. When she opened the door, she put on a smile. She had to smile at Ruth.

The blonde woman stood in front of her, her eyes glistening mischievously.

"Miss Bering." She said, sounding utterly excited. The tone of her voice didn't fit. Something was different. Myka took a step back and shook her head.

"Oh, Ruth. How many times do I have to tell you that you should call me Myka?"

And then Ruth reached forwards and pressed her body into the professor's while wrapping her arms around her neck. For a second she looked deeply into Myka's eyes, and the curly-haired woman saw that this glisten was unusual for Ruth, that something about her was different. Like for example, that she kissed Myka with such a passion that they both tumbled back in the hallway, their limbs entangled. The professor fell back to the wall and leaned against it. The keys fell out of her hand and rattled on the floor. Then she pulled away and looked into the other woman's eyes, confused.

Ruth smiled fondly at her. But her smile was different. Those eyes were different.

"Only if you'll call me Helena, darling."  
____________________________

Helena watched the realisation grow on Myka's face. The professor's eyes widened, her eyebrows raised like they always did when she was surprised. And then the corners of her mouth slightly twitched before they rose.

Myka looked into Helena's eyes, searching for something she had never seen but would still recognise. The Victorian smiled firmly at her while her fingertips softly caressed the skin on the younger woman's cheek.

"Helena?" Myka asked, the disbelief evident in her voice. HG couldn't stop smiling at her. She nodded ever so slightly.

"Myka, it's..." But then she couldn't hold herself back. She leaned forwards to kiss Myka. Leaned forwards to press her lips firmly against those of the woman she loved. The woman she had missed for so long.

Myka didn't pull back like she had done a few seconds ago. Instead she softly whimpered and leaned into the kiss as well. Helena gently cupped her left cheek, while her right hand got entangled in the professor's soft curls. The writer tasted Myka's tongue on her own and smiled while her skin brushed over the other woman's.

It felt like she imagined it, and better. The American felt so unique in her arms, so perfect. Helena knew that she didn't see the younger woman with her own eyes, that she didn't taste her lips and tongue with her own, that the nose that caught Myka's scent was also not her own. But she didn't care. She had this one chance to be with her, to do what she had imagined in those months she had been trapped in this house with the other woman, what she had imagined afterwards... all that time.

She didn't care that all those impression were filtered through another woman's body. That Ruth Thompson was in fact not very different from the earpiece Myka had to use back then to be able to listen to her voice. She would do it again just for this one kiss. Just for these few minutes in which the front door was wide open and the cold wind of London blew on her neck while Myka was leaning against her, kissing her, her thumb brushing over HG's cheek. Even this thumb brush alone was enough.

Helena couldn't stop kissing Myka, while realising that everything she could feel about Myka was worth that journey she had just done.

Helena kissed the other woman's cheek and buried her nose in her neck. She inhaled the scent of Myka's bodywash (apples, like her bathing supplies) while the professor seemed to come back to her senses.

"What... what are you doing here, Helena?" She asked, the confusion in her voice growing which each word. "I... what?"

Again Helena looked into her green eyes while she brushed the tip of her index finger over Myka's lips. The Victorian recognised the tears in the younger woman's eyes and took a deep breath. With Ruth Thompson's lungs, with her mouth, with her nose.

"This," Helena began and placed a chaste and quick kiss on the spot where her finger just had been, "is the part where I get one chance to come back to you. Where I can touch you like I wished for... all the time."

"But this is Ruth!" Helena knew that Myka couldn't understand because she was lacking information. She knew she didn't want to tell Myka about the circumstances of her arrival here right now. HG had taken care for everything. The professor would understand it all when the time was right.

"Miss Thompson has done a sacrifice which is more than appreciated." Helena replied calmly and fondled Myka's shoulders through her coat. "She will have a blackout for the short amount of time in which I can stay."

"Short amount of time?" There was this familiar crease between the professor's eyebrows. "You mean they sent you down from heaven or something and just gave you twenty four hours?"

"Be assured, Myka, that heaven is where I currently am." Helena smiled before kissing the other woman again. Myka's hands gripped onto Helena's hair - no, onto Ruth Thompson's hair - and pulled her slightly away. "Time?" The professor whispered.

"Well, what time is it now?" Helena didn't open her eyes after that kiss.

She could hear the fabric of Myka's coat rustle and feel the professor move against her body. "1: 13 pm?"

"Well, darling." Now HG's eyes flew open to meet the American's. "Then we'll have 20 hours and 6 minutes." She knew Myka's eyebrows furrowed in response to hearing such a precise time designation. "Do you want me to leave?" The writer asked to get them away from the topic of time.

Still pushed against the wall, Myka shifted to close the front door. "No." She said and looked into Helena's eyes. Then she leaned closer. "No." She repeated before kissing the Victorian again.  
_____________________________

Helena undressed Myka slowly, trying to memorise every part of her body only with the help of her fingertips and lips. Ruth's fingertips and lips, she corrected herself but then shoved the thought away. She could lose her head over this thought later. For the part of a second, she pursed her lips but then smiled again. Later wasn't an option anymore.

Myka Bering sat on her bed while HG carefully removed the dress, walking and crawling around her. The Victorian tried to feel and taste as much of Myka's body as possible. So she stroke, caressed, licked and kissed her way down, causing her to moan loudly even before she was out of that dress. With brand new hands, HG explored Myka's body to get to know it. She found out that, indeed, the curly-haired woman's legs were as toned as her stomach and her arms. That in fact, the muscles of her right arm were more developed then those of her left arm, probably due to sport where one used their one arm more than the other (HG supposed tennis or fencing). The writer found out what the creamy skin of Myka's breast and her rosy nipples tasted like, when she got rid of the younger woman's bra.

Helena smiled into the kiss, when the American pulled her up and needily covered her mouth with her own, pulling her close in a desperate ache for release. The writer grinned when she could press her thigh between Myka's legs to give her friction, and only because she was able to do it. HG laughed as she went on exploring the professor's body, and the younger woman hungrily whispered her name in reaction.

As she allowed her fingers to wander between Myka's thighs, so HG could pleasure her this time, she again watched the other woman's face. Myka clung onto her body, pulling her close, grinding on her, but she never stopped kissing her. Helena could feel their addiction for each other, she knew that it weren't their bodies which were in love, but their souls. Only a soul deeply in love with another one could make a strange woman's heart beat like she did it with Ruth Thompson's. And when Myka looked deeply into her eyes while she once again shattered apart - only this time under Helena's actions - Helena felt she finally was home, having found the person she had searched for all her life. And whom she would always seek in other people's faces.

Myka only allowed Helena to break their kiss so she could place her lips further down, where her hands had been. She allowed to taste her like she just had felt her, needy, aroused, opened for her. And while the writer's tongue worked between the younger woman's legs, her hands wandered upwards to her chest to feel the thumps of Myka's heartbeat. A heart beating for her, Helena knew it. And while the professor breathed heavily and moaned from what HG was causing to her, she weakly moved her hand - which had clasped the bed sheet before - to cover the Victorian's with it. Myka came with a final scream, her hand tightly holding Helena's, pressing her release right in the other woman's skin. She pulled HG up to firmly and passionately kiss her. Then the professor kissed the other woman's fingers, gently sucked at them, and played with her tongue at them.

Helena watched it and felt her own body ache. But she stopped Myka's hands when they started fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. "I wish..." The professor whispered, still out of breath. She looked up into Helena's eyes.

"I know." The inventor took a deep breath and slightly shook her head. "Your wish is mine. But once again I have to deny you this." She looked down to Myka's hands, covered with ...Ruth Thompson's. "This body is borrowed and not mine. If you want to have sex with Ruth, you should ask her for it, but I won't make this decision for her. She shall keep her dignity."

Myka leaned forwards to nuzzle her nose slightly into her cheek. "You're far too good for this world, Helena Wells." HG snorted.

"And I love you." Myka mumbled.

Helena's eyes widened in surprise, she pulled her head back to look into the younger woman's eyes. Her eyes gleamed ambigiously, because at the same time she felt happier and sadder than ever in her life.

"You shouldn't." She said before she could hold herself back.

"Do you think my heart cares?" Myka asked tearfully, like the last time they spoke. "I love you so much, Helena. And I wished I hadn't sent you away. I wish you could stay here. Only to mess up my garden, or to take care for my front door keys. Anything. If you would just stay."

"I'm here, Myka." Helena replied and remembered that she had used this sentence before. She had used it to lie at Myka and now their time together wasn't more than a lie either. "I... I'm sorry I have left without a proper goodbye, Myka."

The professor shook her head and clung onto the fabric of HG's blouse. "Do you really think I would have been able to let you go if you would have said goodbye?" She kissed her. "I can't even look forward how to do this tomorrow morning, because I know I cannot let you go. Never. I literally mean this, Helena. I cannot accept that you're dead."

Helena was only seconds away from telling Myka everything, from telling her that her real condition was a different one. But then she remembered that it wouldn't change anything and that soon, the curly-haired woman wouldn't even be wrong.

So she kissed Myka instead, deeply and passionately. To feed the hunger she was feeling, to fill that hole that was literally tearing her heart right now. Telling her about this hole now wouldn't change its existence, but only destroy the short time of happiness they could share.

She wanted to pretend that she didn't have to leave again, that this one day with Myka would be followed by several others. And so she did. They spent their whole day in bed like a just-married couple, ignoring the world outside and ignoring their limited time.  
____________________________

Myka watched Ruth's eyebrows slightly twitch and smiled. As Helena opened the blonde woman's blue eyes, the younger woman recognised that this glisten she had seen there before was still present.

HG stretched and smiled before she buried her face in the pillow. "Have you watched me sleep?" She asked, sounding a little indignant.

"Maybe." The professor replied and placed a kiss on the other woman's hair. "I suppose that it's only appropriate that I get this pleasure once in my life since you watched me sleep for months. Even without my knowledge."

"Well." The Victorian pulled her face up again. "It's also a pleasure to wake up next to you." She smiled fondly. "One could get used to it."

Then, the writer's eyebrows furrowed and she closed her eyes. Myka leaned closer, worried. Helena looked like she was in pain.

"Is everything alright?" The professor quickly reached up her hand to stroke the other woman's backside.

Helena just looked at her, deeply into her eyes. For a brief time Myka was afraid Helena wouldn't answer or at least speak. "What time is it?" The Victorian asked, concerned.

"7 am." The professor replied and sighed. Helena groaned and hid her face back in the pillow. "I have to bring Ruth home." She said, muffled.

Myka didn't know what to say to make the other woman stay. She knew that Helena couldn't but it didn't make her accept it.

"I-" She whispered and kissed Helena's neck, who now turned around to face her. HG reached out a hand and caressed Myka's chin, her lips, her cheeks.

"You have an empty flower bed in your garden." She suddenly said and Myka was utterly confused at her words. "In it, there lies a stone. It's grey with a tinge of red."

"Helena, is that a puzzle?" The younger woman asked and smiled shyly at the Victorian.

"Maybe it is. It has always been a puzzle for me. And I wasn't able to solve it until I realised it's a puzzle I made for you. Myka, you're supposed to dig there. There's something hidden for you. My last puzzle, I assume." Suddenly, she looked sad, but then shook her head and pulled Myka into a long kiss.

When they were about to part in the front yard, Myka clinched onto Helena's red coat. She didn't want to let her go. But she had to. She had to let her leave. Again. But this time, she could kiss her goodbye. This time, she could look her into the eyes, to find that she was as sad as her. To find Helena's love for her and the tears that formed in her eyes, just as they did in Myka's.

"I will always love you, Myka Bering. And I will always miss you. But we can keep this in our memories, even it's only for our minds." Helena spoke while she rested her forehead against the professor's and pressed the younger woman's hand against her chest. "Love isn't. It's for our hearts and our souls, and that's why it lasts longer than our memories."

Myka's reply was nothing but a suffocating sound from somewhere deep in her throat, while she desperately searched for the source of these sentences in her head. But she had to accept that her eidetic memory always left her in company of Helena Wells, before she kissed HG one last time. The last time in her life.

And with that, the Victorian turned around and walked away. When she had made enough distance between herself and the younger woman, Helena reached down to the snow. With a quick move, she turned around and threw a snowball at Myka, laughing. Myka recognised her voice in the sound of Ruth Thompson's laughter. And so she laughed as well, while her heart ached.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come here
> 
> No I won't say please
> 
> One more look at the ghost
> 
> Before I'm gonna make it leave
> 
> Come here
> 
> I've got the pieces here
> 
> Time to gather up the splinters
> 
> Build a casket for my tears
> 
> Poe- Haunted

Myka couldn't do as Helena had told her as long as it was this cold. It wasn't like she didn't try, but the ground in the backyard was far too frozen to dig there properly. So she waited for the weather to get warmer while she kept that stone on her coffee table, right next to her keys.

The weather change came soon, - it started to rain not very long after Helena was gone.

And the first thing Myka did when she woke up this one morning, looking out of the window to find the snow gone under the water falling from the sky, was to walk right into the backyard, still in her pyjama. She had thrown over a coat and put on gumboots, but she was sure she could have started digging completely naked in the rain, just to solve that puzzle Helena had given her.

The ground was still very hard. However, it also became very muddy and she made a huge mess all around the flower bed and on her clothes only to find a small metal suitcase buried deep underneath it. She carried it into the garden shed and opened the lock with a crowbar.

In it was a small leather bag, safe from the water due to the good quality of the suitcase.

Myka decided to leave the suitcase in the garden shed and open the bag in the house.

She left some mud in the living room while getting rid of her coat and her gumboots, but she couldn't care less. Her hair was wet and she was probably about to get a cold, but she wasn't concerned about that either, - the only thing she wanted to do was to open that damn bag.

There was a big bundle of thick envelopes in it. Myka counted 47 of them and was confused. If Helena was dead, where did those envelopes come from? But every letter was marked with her name and address. It was getting more and more mysterious.

The professor carefully placed the letters on the living room's floor, side by side. Some seemed older than the others, they also had different kinds of stamps... and then she noticed that they were from different years.

She held her breath. The first letter was from year 1899. The last one was written in 1946.

The last object Myka found was a note on a small paper sheet. The handwriting was different from the one on the letters.

_Miss Bering, whoever you are. I fulfil Helena's request to bury these letters in the backyard without even knowing who - or should I say when? - you are. I pulled her out of this machine only to have her die in my arms right after it. Of course her weak heart couldn't bear this experiment with her hellish device. With her last breath, she thanked a woman called 'Ruth Thompson' and then told me to go away because she was alright. I don't know if that might be important to you, or important at all, because I still highly doubt your existence. But with Helena George Wells in your life, you might never know._

_A._

Myka swallowed even though no information from this letter made any sense to her. So she opened the envelope with the oldest date, 1899, and started reading.

She immediately teared up after the few written lines.

_Dearest Myka,_

_I have been in bed for four days now and am recovering. I've have regained so much strength that I can now hold a pen again. Thank goodness._

_And I can perfectly imagine the confusion growing on your face: you have a slight crease between your eyebrows and ask yourself what this means. Well, I will try to answer that question forming in your head with another one:_

_Did you know that time travel is a physical impossibility? It is. You cannot bring one object to another time because it's literally impossible. I'm telling you this because it took me so much time to accept this after I built the time machine. That machine me and my brother Charles had written about in this book you once read to me._

_Yes, Myka, I built a time machine and no, I couldn't rescue Christina with it, even though I tried again and again, steadily working on the machine to make it possible for my body to travel through time and not only my mind. After a while I could transfer my mind into other people's bodies for a period of time, but I've never faced the murderers of my daughter in person. Somewhere during my desperate attempts to succeed, I lost myself and completely gave up on life. This was when I died - literally. Charles told me my heart stopped beating for several minutes (he panicked too much to actually count them). And this was where my lost soul split from my body and was sent through time and space by my machine - only to find you. This was the moment where I became a ghost, even though we both know that they don't exist. I was dead, Myka, for several minutes, while my soul was trapped in this house for years. I don't know for how long I've actually been in this house before I met you, but I can say that you have found me, rescued me and sent me back into my life._

_I have also realised something very important while I was with you: I don't want to be dead. I have forgotten that after Christina's death. And it might be that it came to my mind that I would be better off dead because was denying I had to face a life without her. But now I remembered that I honestly want to live. I am grateful for that. I am grateful for you._

_Thank you, Myka Bering, for touching me, even though you were never able to do so._

_The problem is that now I can live like I want to, but I can never do it together with you. Because, let's face the truth, I will surely die before you will be born. I was dead long before you met me._

_We're separated by this time and space that allowed me to meet you and my heart aches at the thought. Interesting cue, by the way. My physician says that the incident with the machine caused me to have a heart condition. Which is why I had to promise my brother I'd never use that machine again. He's already taking it apart downstairs, in the laboratory (you might know that room now as your living room). Well, I can live with that, but my heart will always be weak. You literally left an imprint on my heart, Myka. It's aching for you._

_I hope that doesn't hold me back from carrying on - pardon my words. In the last days, I have made some plans about my future. I want to live as much as possible, travel, see different places and countries, get to know things and people I didn't know before._

_I'm looking forward to it. Because I cannot look forward to meeting you again, no matter how much this thought hurts me._

_But I can make you take part in my life. And this is why I'll write letters to you. You should know what you did to me, that you made me want to live again and that I'm taking advantage of this life. I promise I'll make the best of it._

_I love you, Myka Bering._

_Helena_

Myka sat down on the couch and clenched her jaw while her fingertips wandered over Helena's handwriting. She looked down to the letters on the ground and understood their purpose. It was Helena's life, in letters. And when she looked at the date of the last one, she saw a different aspect of them: Helena had written her a letter for each year of her life, until she died.

The professor closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then she opened the next envelope.  
________________________________

Myka needed several days to work through Helena's letters. Some of them were enormously long. All of them told her the story of the her love's life and so Myka spent most of her time off reading them. She wandered from room to room and read, slept, ate, read again. Helena wrote her about of her travels, the stories of the people she met and liked, sometimes about her inventions and always about her love for Myka.

At times the professor had to force herself to put them away, because Helena's words gnawed at her heart. Then she went to university and buried herself in work, because she needed a distraction from them. Sometimes, HG's words played with her. She could feel through the ink and paper that Helena tried to flirt with her. That she tried to arouse her with her words. And that she was successful. Myka once spent an evening with a letter and a glass of wine in the bathtub, instructed by the Victorian's words.

From what Myka got from the letters, the writer travelled the first fifteen years after her accident with the time machine. She wrote letters to Charles in which she described her research and ideas for stories, so he could write them and earn money to finance her travelling. The house Helena had bought in 1899 for her experiments (and in which Myka lived now) stayed empty, but the inventor kept it so she could send her letters to Myka there. It was posing like a letterbox.

There were pictures in Helena's letters. Black and white, some of them blurred and faded from old age... But when Myka held the first picture of HG Wells in her hands, she had to sit down. Helena looked like Myka had imagined it from her words, but only far better. And still the professor had the feeling she had seen that face already. Helena's face was hidden somewhere deep in her subconsciousness, and she recognised it on the picture. Recognised that mischievous glisten in her eyes.

During World War I (and Helena cursed a lot in her letters when she wrote about this topic - this was when the writer became so angry that she couldn't control her language), HG was literally trapped in the USA. There she met a man and his daughter ( _Nate and Adelaide, Myka. You would like them, I suppose. I don't know. I like them. It's,_ \- and here she seemed to struggle with words, - _he's a really good man and his daughter is wonderful. Sometimes, she reminds me of Christina, but in a different way._ ) Myka could tell from the letters that Helena had an affair with him, but she could also tell she didn't love him. The professor pursed her lips at the thought, because she felt jealous and had to tell herself that Helena had met him before she was born. Very long before Myka Bering was born. Still she had to put the letter away and walk angrily through the living room, huffing and puffing. She also had to remind herself that 'World War I' meant that the woman she loved had now been about 50 years old and that their long-distance relationship (Myka liked to refer to it as one) had now also turned into a relationship with a very big age difference. Nate wasn't seen on any of the pictures and Myka was glad about it. So Myka was able to smile looking at those pictures, where Helena and Adelaide were holding arms grinning into the camera, the writer already with grey hair strands around her temples.

In the 1920s Helena came back to London to meet her brother Charles (and his wife and children). The writer spent very much money and time commuting between London and America to be with both parts of her family. She wrote a lot about Adelaide growing up into a wonderful woman ( _She studies medicine, Myka. I almost cannot believe it, but it's possible and I am so proud of her_ ). And she also wrote about her own aging. ( _I don't know if you would recognise me anymore. I will send pictures. Don't laugh at me, but I have to wear spectacles now because I'm getting old and blind, although I look ridiculous with them. They don't suit me as well as they suit you, darling. Are you wearing yours right now?_ )

In the early 1930s Nate died (Myka had to keep herself from cheering) and Helena started travelling again, this time with Adelaide as her companion. ( _She's my personal physician now. Which on one hand is highly practical, but on the other hand she annoys me when telling me that I cannot climb this mountain due to my age and my heart condition. And I couldn't care less. Of course I'll climb that mountain. And of course she'll keep me company, climbing that mountain as well. And I'd wait for her at the top, laughing, because - even with my age and heart condition - I'm faster than she is. She doesn't know how fast my heart is beating while I wait for her, and I won't tell her how much it hurts. Because I'm happy here, Myka. I'm happy on top of the mountain with my heart aching, because I know that meeting you allowed me to climb it._ )

Helena observed the political situation during those years with as much anger as she had watched World War I. And when the situation escalated into war, her letters once again were peppered with curses. ( _This is something I sadly forgot to research when I was in your time, Myka. Is mankind still hitting each other with their clubs like Neanderthals?_ Myka sighed. "Of course they are.")

Myka couldn't tell from HG's letters or the envelopes where she spent her time during World War II. There were no stamps on the letters anymore, - it seemed someone had brought them to this house by hand.

And then, there was the last envelope. It was not very thick, but Myka could feel there was an object in the envelope. She avoided this one for a whole day, because she wasn't ready to read it.

But then she couldn't wait any longer to open it. In the envelope were two letters. One was dated 14th August 1946, the other one had no date. Myka sighed as she recognised that the handwriting had changed on the second letter. It looked like the hand that had written the letter had been shaking.

In the first letter, Helena told Myka that Charles had died and that she had been actually able to outlive him. ( _Technically, I'm still younger than him, but I feel fine and I know that even with my weak heart, I can live another ten years!_ )

Of course the professor could read that Helena was sad about her brother's death, but the writer hid it in snarky comments about him. And wrote about how women would always outlive men. Myka knew HG far too well to know that those words didn't mean happiness about getting to live longer than her brother, but anger and grief and her own way of dealing with it.

And then Myka looked at the second letter. She had to put it on the coffee table right next to the stone and her keys so she could make coffee before reading on.

_My dearest Myka,_ Helena's handwriting looked weak, the lines wavering. 

_do you know what a heart attack feels like? Of course you don't and I hope you never will. But I know because last night I had one. It's comparable to the pain I felt during my time with you, the pain I felt when I was trapped in my time machine, dead. It feels like your heart bursts and the splinters are spread to your veins... and then your chest explodes. I cannot describe it any further, because I cannot hold this pen properly. It keeps slipping out of my fingers._

_Adelaide says I can recover from this. I need to rest a lot, eat healthy food and take those silly pills she wants me to take. But she lacks information I have._

_Myka, I do remember this article Claudia Donovan once read to me. We don't know what Charles died from, like it's written there in your time. But I remember the second part of the paragraph, I know what will cause my death. Because I know that after one earthquake wave there is very likely to be a second, stronger one. I know what will kill me. And I can accept it. I have lived, Myka. I have taken advantage of my life, just like I promised you. I can look back and say that my life was a good one, that it's something you can be proud of. You can be proud of me, although I know you will mourn me when you read these words. Be strong, Myka, even though your pain reaches the sky._

_There is this only one thing I refuse to accept, that I cannot miss before I die, Myka. I cannot accept my fate without ever touching you properly, my love. Without ever having kissed you._

_I know I am an old woman, whose hands are shaking as I write this, and I know you wouldn't recognise my face. But you don't need to, because I will come to you with the face of another woman. And please excuse my choice, it was the only person that came to my mind except Claudia Donovan. And I didn't want to do that to her._

_I want to spend my last day with you, Myka. I know that the time machine will destroy whatever strength is left in my heart, but this heart still loves you. And I want it to have one last day with you. One last day in which I can kiss and touch you._

_Because even though you said it's not about not seeing and touching me, we both know that this part has always been a problem for us. And I don't want to die without solving this puzzle._

_Adelaide has promised to help me. She doesn't know what she's really doing, but she knows who you are because I told her about you._

_Adelaide will help me in breaking that promise I made to Charles, but he cannot be mad at me anymore. Because with my last breath, I want to create my own heaven._

_I'm coming for you, darling._

_I love you._

_Helena_

Myka threw the letter away. She tossed it through the room in anger and pain, grieving. She felt she couldn't breathe anymore. Myka loudly sucked in the air, coughing, shaking, trembling... until she understood that those were her own tears she was choking with.

Watching the sheets of the letter coming to rest like leaves... or like snow... the professor curled up on the couch and cried, realising that before their last meeting only weeks had passed for her, but a whole life for Helena.

The professor mourned Helena with all her body and soul, pressing against the pillows on the couch, desperately clutching them. She simply didn't know what else to do.

When she had no tears to cry anymore, her eyes fell on the last envelope again. There was still this object in it. Her hands were shaking as she reached into the envelope and pulled out a locket. With her teeth clenching, she opened it.

Inside there were two black and white pictures. One of them was a young girl with black hair and dark eyes and Myka knew it was Christina.

The other one was Helena.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm haunted
> 
> By the hallways in this tiny room
> 
> The echoes there of me and you
> 
> The voices that are carrying this tune.
> 
> Poe - Haunted

Myka stood in the living room of her empty house. It wasn't literally empty, but it felt that way. She kept asking herself how she should live on in this house without Helena. She didn't feel like she could ever be able to move on.

Claudia kept telling her that if HG had been able to manage living a whole life without the professor, Myka could be able to do that as well. Because they were two strong souls who although were separated by time and space, but were so entangled with each other that they gave one another strength.

"Well, you were right about one point." Claudia had admitted on the phone. "Ghosts don't exist. One point for science. Eat that, 'esoteric bullshit'. I'll have a fine talk about that with Steve, who still rambles about soul transmigration."

"I don't know, Claud." Myka had replied. "I feel haunted by her. Like this whole house represents Helena and makes sure I am alright."

"That's really something I wouldn't have expected you to say, Melinda Gordon." And this was where Claudia had finally been able to make Myka laugh.

A quiet bang from outside the house pulled the professor out of her thoughts. Helena had lived for her, so Myka could live for Helena. And maybe in the end... she could put that 'esoteric bullshit' together.

She took the keys from the coffee table, her fingers brushed over the grey-red stone next to it and her sight fell on all the letters there. She sighed because she hadn't yet had the heart to put them away. Helena's locket was hanging on a necklace, together with a small piece of cable from Myka's ear device she had removed from her house along with the other unnecessary technology . Both were hidden under Myka's shirt: while the cable was more of a symbolic thing, she had the feeling the locket gave her strength. Strength to now leave the living room and go outside to get the newspaper and have breakfast. Maybe she could read the book review section.

When Myka unlocked the front door and took a big step outside, her view fell on a small figure right in front of her.

A toddler! There was a toddler sitting on her porch! In the last moment, the professor pulled up her knee to keep herself from kicking the child. Now she had to manage her balance and for that she kept jumping on one leg around the toddler, cursing quietly. She hoped the child couldn't understand her words yet.

"Here!" The kid squealed and raised its tiny arms happily. After Myka has successfully managed to defy gravity, she stared at the child, confused. The professor surveyed the toddler and assumed that she was looking at a girl. A girl with black hair and brown eyes.

"Stnuh!" The kid now babbled and reached out her tiny hands for her. Now Myka looked around, but no one else was in sight. So the professor decided to pick up the girl from the cold ground and go search for her mummy. She had to be somewhere, - no one left children on other people's porches. Well, at least Myka hoped that no one did things like these. She wasn't sure anymore.

"Uhm..." She muttered while the child struggled in her arms and demanded "Down!".

"Is somebody here?" Myka asked loudly. "Because I refuse to have this kid abandoned on my porch!"

"Oh my god!" Came a voice with a sympathetic British accent from somewhere above her head. "Christina!"

A woman fell from the sky. Well, not literally. Myka guessed she was hurriedly climbing down the roof of her porch, where she had been before. The woman quickly made it over the porch's ballustrade and approached Myka and the child, while speaking so fast that Myka could only make out the words like 'sorry', 'just', 'seconds', 'thank you' and 'Christina!'. When the woman took her daughter out of the professor's arms, Myka got utterly distracted by her red bobble hat, which was waving and dangling right in front of her face. It was not the most beautiful woolen object Myka had ever seen, but it was impressive.

And then the woman looked directly at the American. This was where Myka lost command over the features of her face, because she could tell that her mouth was suddenly hanging wide open, but she couldn't do anything about it. She stared at the other woman's beautiful face, completely flabbergasted. Looked into her dark brown eyes, studied her red lips which now moved into a smirk. The professor's eyes looked up to find that raven-black silken locks peeking out from under the ...still very silly-looking red bobble hat.

"Are you alright?" The British woman asked and raised one eyebrow, looking both confused and amused about Myka's behaviour.

"Muh Bring." Myka mumbled and the woman laughed. Myka knew that laughter, she was sure of it. It sounded so unique and wonderful in her ears.

"Pardon?" The Brit asked and pressed her lips together like she was fighting another laughter.

"Myka Bering." The professor was glad she had finally found the part of her brain that was responsible for proper articulation and was able to activate it. "That's my name." She spoke and held out a hand.

The other woman smiled fondly at her and took that hand, awkwardly reaching around the child in her arms.

"Emily Lake." She replied while shaking Myka's hand. "Nice to meet you." Myka had the feeling of a whole world made of newspaper articles and book covers was crashing down on the top of her head. A name, haunting her.

"Have we met before? I have the feeling we did." Emily asked at Myka's facial expression, not letting go of the professor's hand.

"No, I suppose. But I understand what you mean." Then, the American's face brightened. "The snowball!" She said and pointed her finger at Emily.

The other woman's eyes widened in surprise. "Right, uhm. The snowball I- ...my daughter threw at you. I'm very sorry for that."

And then Miss Lake made attempt to turn around, looking utterly determined in leaving Myka and her house as fast as possible.

"Excuse me?" The professor intervened, because her brain now had started working properly again. "But what were you doing on the roof of my porch?"

Miss Lake sharply sucked in the air and narrowed her eyes. Her mischievously shining eyes.

"Well." She said and sounded a little frustrated. "You wouldn't quite believe me if I say I was the milkman?"

Myka shook her head. "On the roof?"

"The postman?" Miss Lake's voice was a plead.

"Well, look at the facts." The professor began and slightly waved her right arm. "For example that you're not carrying any milk or mail... Or that you told me your name was Emily Lake, a name I have read very often in the newspaper in connection with a book called 'Losing my bearings'. I would not believe you, I'm sorry."

Emily Lake hummed and took off her hat to hand it to the girl in her arms. The child squealed again and started waving it around. Myka admired the other woman's raven black hair and then caught herself staring at Miss Lake's lips.

"Have you read it?" The writer's eyes glinted.

"Not yet." Myka replied. "But maybe I will."

"That would honour me, Miss Bering." Miss Lake replied and tried to leave but Myka was having none of it. "The roof." She said firmly. "My porch. What were you doing there?"

"Okay, okay." Miss Lake put Christina down to the ground and raised her hands. "You don't want to let go of the topic, do you?"

"Nope." Myka replied and grinned.

"Then I'd have to tell you that embarrassing story. But you have to promise not to laugh, Miss Bering." The writer covered her face for a short time with her hands.

"I won't, Miss Lake. Actually I like good stories." Myka played with the keys in her hands and leaned on the doorframe. She watched Christina walking over the floor of her porch.

"Alright then." Emily Lake smiled shyly. "You already know that I am a writer. Good. I live on the other side of the street. Moved here two years ago when I was pregnant with Christina." She pointed at her daughter. "Well, I have to say my flat wasn't what caused my decision to move here. This house was." Now Emily pointed at Myka's front door, right next to Myka's head. "It's like... argh... it's hard to explain, Miss Bering." Again, the writer buried her face in her hands.

"Try, please, for me." The professor smiled softly at her. Emily peeked through her fingers and then took her hands away. She smiled as she looked down to the ground, avoiding eye contact... and then blushed. Myka watched Emily Lake _blush_.

"Well, your house intrigues me. It's like I already knew it before I moved here. Like I searched for it all my life. I have the feeling it haunts me, Miss Bering, without knowing why. Don't laugh at me! I know that usually ghosts haunt houses and not the other way around!" Miss Lake took a deep breath. "So I moved to the other side of the street, pregnant with Christina, and wrote my first novel about this house. It's a mystery novel." She looked up for a second right into Myka's eyes, blushed again and then looked down. "I had the feeling that this house could tell so many stories, so I wrote them myself. And well, the novel became very succesful after a few months. 'Losing my bearings' is actually a bestseller and I was surprised to see my name in the newspaper in November."

The professor bit her lip. She remembered that she had read Emily Lake's name in the newspaper as well, but she was too distracted back then to actually recognise it.

"So, when I had earned enough money - before the novel got this successful - I tried to find a way to... buy the house. To make it mine, because it felt like mine. But then I found out that you have already bought it a few months ago. And this was when I became mad at you, Miss Bering." Emily pressed her lips together.

"Oh, that. I understand the snowball." Myka laughed loudly.

"Yeah, sorry for that." Miss Lake scrunched her nose. "You promised not to laugh."

"Miss Lake, I haven't laughed at the story, which I find very interesting, but at you throwing a snowball at me and then pretending it was your daughter." The professor explained, causing Emily to intensively study the tips of her boots.

"However, you still hadn't told me what you were doing on the roof of my porch." The professor smirked. The writer rolled her eyes.

"Fine, the whole story I suppose. It's not like this house is letting me go, Miss Bering. It still intrigues me and I'm still jealous you own it and I don't." Emily huffed.

"So you climbed my porch's roof to look into my windows and make sure I'm taking good care of it?" Myka asked.

"Well, more to find out what they did to it during the renovation, Miss Bering." The Brit admitted. "And yes, I also peeked in your rooms. The walls are far too colourful." She pursed her lips in obvious disapproval.

Myka smiled at Emily Lake. She watched the blush on her face, a face she had seen before in her sleep and on pictures. She knew she didn't want to let the other woman go. Not again.

So she reached out a hand to open the front door, which had been ajar all the time. "Well, Miss Lake." She said and smiled. "If you would have asked me earlier, I guess you would have been very happy right now."

Miss Lake's brown eyes snapped up, meeting green. "What do you mean?"

"I'm inviting you in. Don't you want to see the inside of the house that wouldn't let you go?" Myka asked.

Miss Lake stared at her, surveyed the professor's face and then her body (and yes, Myka noticed that her lips actually parted as her eyes moved downwards) and then nodded her head ever so slightly. "That... that would be really nice, Miss Bering. Thank you."

After Emily and Christina got rid of their coats, Myka led them into the living room where she placed her keys on the coffee table. She could hear the writer gasp behind her. The professor spun on her heels.

"Is everything alright, Miss Lake?" She asked and smiled softly.

"Hm?" The other woman's eyes were pinned to the keys on the table and then darted to Myka's face. "Yes, it's fine. I just asked myself if it wouldn't be more practical to have a board on the wall or something comparable where you could keep your keys. If I placed mine randomly in the house, I would never be able to find them."

Emily's eyes gleamed; Myka could tell from her furrowed eyebrows that she was trying to remember something she couldn't. Probably her heart just told her that there was something familiar about the curly-haired woman's gesture, but she had no memory of it. For the part of a second Myka was sad. But then she thought that this might be a new beginning and that maybe she could show the writer what she was so desperately trying to remember. Emily Lake wasn't Helena Wells. She was more than only Helena, and Myka was utterly interested in getting to know her better.

"That's a very good advice, thank you, Miss Lake. But well, I always place my keys at this place so I remember where they are." The professor looked deeply into the other woman's eyes, who just stared back, her eyes gleaming and eyebrows furrowed. Myka's heart fluttered as she looked into those eyes, and her ability to breathe properly seemed to struggle with its purpose.

It was Christina's part to interrupt the moment in which their souls admitted to know each other. "Down!" The girl demanded and Emily broke eye contact to softly kiss her hair before she did like her daughter had asked her. The girl crossed the living room right towards Myka and then gripped the fabric of the professor's trousers. She looked up and laughed loudly before prompting"Here!" The girl reached up her arms for Myka who carefully picked her up.

"Maybe she likes me." The professor said shyly while Christina pulled amusedly at her curls. Emily blinked for a few seconds at them and then nodded. "She does." A smile was dancing over her lips.

Myka showed Miss Lake the entire house and watched the other woman's face light up while doing it. Somehow, the professor had the feeling that Emily wasn't really looking at her rooms, but more at the professor, even though the writer's eyes shyed away every time when the American glanced at her.

Several minutes later, Emily was about to dress in her coat and bobble hat again. Myka looked at the red object, her heart pounding fast in her chest.

"A question." She said quickly, because she didn't know what else to do. Meanwhile Christina slowly walked around their feet, babbling happily.

Miss Lake's head snapped up, her eyes searching for Myka's, like she was eagerly expecting something from the other woman.

"That red bobble hat. It doesn't fit your clothes. May I ask why...?" Myka stuttered. She knew she did, while desperately searching in her head for something to make the Brit stay.

"Ah, it's a gift from my cousin's daughter. It was for Christina, but her head is too small for it and so I promised her to wear it myself as long as it is cold. That child was incredibly sad it didn't fit my daughter's head. She's nine." Emily smiled shyly and then blushed again while putting the object in question on her head. "And I always keep my promises if possible."

Myka closed her eyes, waved her arms around nervously and then blurted out. "Coffee?"

The writer's eyebrows raised and then, she slightly smirked. "Pardon?"

In reaction, the other woman shook her head, struggling for words. "Do you want to stay for coffee? Or tea... or whatever you modern Brits like to drink?"

Emily grinned at Myka and then nodded. She put her coat and her hat away again and then took a step closer. "A tea would be fine."

Minutes later, Emily Lake sat at Myka's dinner table while her daughter Christina drew with the crayons the American had given her. The girl was vigorously using the red one.

Carefully, Myka leaned close to Emily to pour some tea into the other woman's mug, when they both turned their heads towards each other. Ther eyes met and the writer's nostrils flared slightly. "Apples." She whispered, and the tip of her tongue wandered over her lower lip.

Then, Emily leaned forwards and placed a quick kiss on Myka's lips. She only brushed over the professor's mouth, but the American was so stunned by it that she spilled the tea on the table.

Emily quickly pulled back and looked down. She shook her head. "Forgive me, Miss Bering. I don't know what came over me."

With a loud rattle, the professor put her teapot down on the table. "Myka. And maybe I can help you out with this." She whispered, less than a breath on her lips, before she placed both hands on Emily's face to pull closer and kiss her passionately. It was so much, and not enough: Lips brushed over lips, tongues met, hands wandered over necks and shoulders and still Myka wasn't able to get Emily Lake fully.

Breathless, the writer pulled back to press her forehead against Myka's. "Tell me." She breathed while her hands were round the back of Myka's neck. "Tell me why I have the feeling it's not the house I've been searching for all my life but the woman who's living in it."

She again placed her lips on Myka's for a deep kiss. The professor felt that Emily was desperate. Desperate to find out why their hearts beat faster when their eyes met, why it felt like their souls were gravitating towards each other... like they did just now, when Emily slowly rose from her chair in the passion of their kiss to press her body onto Myka's.

"That's actually a pretty long story." Myka whispered between two kisses and heard Christina squeal happily behind herself.

"I have a thing for long stories." Emily replied when they broke apart for another short time, just to kiss the American again. "I'm a writer. My novel has 640 pages."

"So? I'm a literature professor." Myka blew the words on the Brit's neck. "And I'll read them all."

"Good to know. Explains why you have your own library." Emily said and once again rested her forehead against Myka's. "But first this story. Will I need a babysitter?"

Myka pulled back and then looked at Christina, whose picture was now showing a big red circle. The professor shook her head. "She can stay. I want her to stay." She smiled. Then she reached into her own cleavage, a gesture which caused Emily's eyes to widen and her lips to part.

The professor pulled out the locket from under her shirt. She unclasped the necklace and reached out for the writer's hand to carefully open it. "It's a very long story spanning 147 years. But before I can tell it to you, I have one question." She whispered while putting the locket in the writer's hands and closing the Brit's fingers around it. Myka looked up into Emily's dark brown eyes and felt her heart skip at the sight of that mischievous glisten again. She smiled fondly and then asked.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

**The End**


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